Twelve days before the midterm elections, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and former Montana Senator Jon Tester traveled down to Alabama to campaign in one of the country’s most unexpected battleground districts.
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Booker → travel → districts
They trekked to Dothan, Alabama, the “peanut capital of the world,” which sits in Houston County, where Donald Trump won 73 percent of the vote in 2024.
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Trump → trek → 2024
It’s now part of the state’s second congressional district, which Republicans redrew to oust first-term Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures after the Supreme Court dismantled the Voting Rights Act this spring.
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Court → ’ → Act
In 2024, Figures’ election marked the first time that Alabama had two Black members of Congress.
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Alabama → mark → Congress
But following the Louisiana v. Callais decision Republicans removed Figures’ hometown of Mobile, along with several Black Belt counties, from the district and added the overwhelmingly white and rural Wiregrass region in the Southeast part of the state, which includes Houston County, to dilute Black voting power and turn the seat red.
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which → follow → seat
But things haven’t gone according to plan.
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things → go → plan
On a Thursday at noon, a standing-room only crowd of 400 to 500 people packed a former industrial building downtown to rally for Figures.
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crowd → stand → Figures
“Oh man,” Figures said when he took the stage.
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he → say → stage
“When’s the last time y’all been to a rally like this in Dothan?”
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all → ’ → Dothan
“Never!” yelled members of the crowd.
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members → yell → crowd
“When they gave me the Wiregrass,” Figures said, “they did not know that the Wiregrass looked like this.”
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Wiregrass → give → this
Democratic candidates rarely campaign in a place like Dothan and the rally felt more like a church revival service than your typical weekday campaign event.
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rally → campaign → event
Tester led the room in a loud “Shomari! Figures!” chant and chest-pumped Booker when he took the stage.
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he → lead → stage
Booker joked that Figures, who like the New Jersey senator is bald but 16 years younger, was his “stunt double.”
Figures, 41, is young and energetic, with four kids under eight.
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Figures → joke → eight
His wife, whom he met when they both worked in the Obama White House, sat in the front row with their three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son, next to his mom, Vivian, a state senator who plays the dual role of grandma and political consigliere on the campaign trail.
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who → meet → trail
Figures recounted how Republicans had aggressively targeted his seat.
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Republicans → recount → seat
“They took a pen, they carved it up,” he said.
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he → take → it
“They carved out some communities of people who look like me.
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who → carve → me
Tried to carve in more communities of people who don’t look like me.
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who → try → me
Then they said, we did it because of politics.”
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we → say → politics
The predominantly Black crowd laughed and jeered.
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crowd → laugh → ?
“But what they did not know in doing that, it doesn’t matter what your district lines look like when people are paying $4 a gallon for gas,” Figures continued.
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Figures → know → gas
“It doesn’t matter what your district lines look like when farmers are paying all-time high prices for diesel fuel.
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farmers → matter → fuel
It doesn’t matter how many farmers you put into the district when those farmers are paying all-time high prices for fertilizer because a president wants to start a war in Iran.”
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president → matter → Iran
Afterward, locals said it was the largest Democratic event they’d seen in the area in decades.
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they → say → decades
“I was born and raised in Dothan, Alabama,” says Letitia Daniels-Jackson, a community organizer who is running to become the first Black woman on the Houston County Commission.
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who → bear → Commission
“I have never seen a rally with this much excitement and this kind of crowd, ever.
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I → see → crowd
This has fired people up.”
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This → fire → people
Both sides agree that what was expected to be a safe Republican pickup is now essentially a coin flip.
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expected → agree → ?
Figures is counting on anger over the Callais ruling to drive Democrats, particularly Black voters, to the polls, even in deep red areas like Dothan, while frustration over the rising cost of everything will keep traditionally Republican voters home.
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frustration → count → voters
“We’re seeing and feeling on the ground that people are upset and the data supports that,” Figures told me in an interview before the rally.
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Figures → see → rally
The Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act was supposed to turbocharge Republican redistricting efforts—and it still might in the long-term—but in the short-term it is fueling increased turnout from Black voters, much like the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade motivated women voters during the last midterm election.
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decision → suppose → election
The pollster Terrence Woodbury calls it a “Blacklash.”
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pollster → call → it
When Alabama held its congressional primaries weeks after the Callais decision, turnout increased by 10 points in Montgomery—the district’s Democratic stronghold and Figures’ new hometown—compared to 2022 and was 7 points higher than the statewide average.
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turnout → hold → average
Alabama doesn’t have early voting, so
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Alabama → have → voting
we’ll have to wait until November 3 to see the ultimate impact of a potential backlash to the Callais decision, but Black turnout has surged during early voting in other Southern states that have recently redrawn their maps or threatened to.
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that → have → maps
The biggest increase has been in Louisiana, where the Callais case originated and where the Black share of the early vote jumped by nine points compared to 2024.
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share → originate → 2024
Elsewhere in the South, Black turnout has increased by eight points in South Carolina, six points in Georgia, three points in North Carolina, and 2.5 points in Tennessee, according to data compiled by Tom Bonier, a senior adviser with the Democratic data firm TargetSmart.
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turnout → increase → firm
That continues a trend from the primaries, when turnout in majority-Black counties increased by nearly six points in Southern states that held primaries after the Callais decision, compared to a 1.1 point increase in states that held primaries before, found VoteHub.
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VoteHub → continue → primaries
“Looking at the data in these in Southern states we’re seeing very large increases in Black voter turnout,” says Bonier.
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Bonier → look → turnout
…and 84 more, not listed.
The Aporia
