Alabama voters are participating in a second round of congressional primary elections after the state legislature adopted new district maps in May, a redrawing that shifted county alignments, reduced the Black voting-age share in one district, and drew additional Republican candidates into races that previously had fewer contenders.
Alabama Holds Second Congressional Primary After Legislature Redraws District Map
Alabama voters are participating in a second round of congressional primary elections after the state legislature adopted new district maps in May, a redrawing that shifted county alignments, reduced the Black voting-age share in one district, and drew additional Republican candidates into races that previously had fewer contenders.
The redistricting followed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana case that struck down drawing district lines based on race as unconstitutional, while leaving partisan gerrymandering permissible. Several Southern states subsequently redrew their maps ahead of elections.
Under the new maps, Lowndes County moves from the 7th Congressional District to the 2nd. Residents at a congressional town hall at Beulah Primitive Baptist Church in Lowndes County expressed concern that the changes would disperse Black voters, who tend to vote Democratic.
Democratic Representative Shomari Figures, one of two Black members of Alabama's congressional delegation, holds the 2nd District seat. He was first elected in 2024 after federal courts ruled the previous map was discriminatory and ordered a new district drawn to include the majority-Black cities of Mobile and Montgomery. The redrawn map removes Mobile, Figures' hometown, from the district.
According to Figures, the 2nd District was approximately 47 percent Black before redistricting; the new boundaries reduce that share to about 40 percent. Figures is running uncontested for the Democratic nomination.
On the Republican side, six candidates are now competing in the 2nd District primary. Before redistricting, only one Republican, 29-year-old Hampton Harris, had qualified. Harris noted he had at one point been running across what amounted to roughly half the state due to shifting boundaries, and expressed concern about voter confusion and low turnout in the August heat.
State Representative Rhett Marques, a businessman from Enterprise, Alabama, switched from the 1st Congressional District to the 2nd after redistricting and holds an endorsement from President Trump. Marques described the redrawn district as an opportunity for Republicans to regain a seat.
Democratic Congresswoman Terri Sewell, the state's other Black congressional representative, said the Supreme Court's position — that maps are acceptable if a state provides a legitimate partisan rationale, even if they disadvantage minorities — is unacceptable. Alabama's congressional delegation otherwise consists of five white Republicans, in a state where Black residents make up just over a quarter of the population.
Barbour County Commissioner Jerry McGilvray said his predominantly rural, agricultural region in east Alabama had little in common with coastal Mobile, which had been placed in the same district under the previous map.
- The specific four congressional districts affected by the special primary are not all named in the source.
- The source does not establish the total number of voters affected by the redistricting.
- The source does not provide the full text or citation details of the Supreme Court ruling beyond describing it as a Louisiana case.
- The source does not name which other Southern states redistricted following the Supreme Court decision.
- The source does not state the outcome of the primary election, as the report was filed before voting concluded.
- The source does not specify the current racial composition of the 1st Congressional District that Marques left.
- The source does not detail the specific legal or procedural basis under which the May 2026 redistricting was enacted.
- The identities of the five other Republican candidates in the 2nd District race beyond Harris, Marques, and McKee are not provided.
- The source does not confirm the date of the general election following the primary.