HOPE HULL, Ala. — Willie Dixon and Mary Gatson are sitting in the fellowship hall of Beulah Primitive Baptist Church in Lowndes County awaiting a congressional town hall, and discussing the last-minute changes to Alabama's voting landscape.
"Create enough chaos, and people will give up and go home," Dixon predicted.
Voters in parts of Alabama will head to the polls Tuesday for the second time this primary season. After the U.S. Supreme Court dismantled a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act when it ruled that it's unconstitutional to draw district lines based on race, Alabama became one of several southern states to rush to redistrict before the midterm elections to consolidate Republican power.
Less than two weeks before the regular May primary, Alabama's Republican-controlled state legislature reconfigured four of the state's seven districts, reshaping a largely Black district drawn in response to a court decision that ruled the same map being used this year was discriminatory.
Dixon thought she was in the same district as before until Gatson told her it changed. Anyone who voted in the first primary here had their votes voided.
"With these two [primaries] coming so close together, I know there will be some people that are not going to show up because they think they've already done it," Dixon said.
Lowndes County is in Alabama's rural Black Belt — a predominantly African American region known for its rich black soil. The ladies say they worry the changes will disperse and discourage Black voters, who tend to vote Democratic.
"I think it's very inappropriate," Gatson said. "That's politics though."
"That's not fair by no means," Dixon added. "Never has been."
They say the fight for representation here is nothing new, pointing to Lowndes County's strategic location along the Selma to Montgomery voting rights march — a movement that led to passage of the Voting Rights Act.
Democrats aren't giving up
"This is not about no representation or some representation, it's about fair representation," said Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, one of two Black Democrats in Alabama's seven-member congressional delegation. The other five are all white Republicans. Black people make up a little over a quarter of the state's population.
"It's unacceptable that we are living in an era where the Supreme Court has said that as long as a state articulates a legitimate partisan reason for redrawing a map or drawing a map, that it's okay, even if it discriminates against minorities," Sewell said.
The new map creates the most difficult path to reelection for Rep. Shomari Figures.
He was first elected in 2024 after Black voters sued and federal courts ruled that Alabama's congressional map must be redrawn. Judges created a new district that included the mostly Black cities of Mobile and Montgomery.
But now the district no longer includes Mobile, Figures' hometown. Even with the odds against him, he's trying to put on a good face.
"There's been a lot of efforts by some to paint this district as a lost cause, saying that we lost a majority Black seat in the state of Alabama. But neither is true," he said, pointing out that the seat was never majority Black.
He says it's currently about 47% Black, while the new district takes that down to about 40%. Figures says he has a record of working on behalf of all people in the district.
"We represent everybody," he said. "I'm confident that come November we'll be able to take that record to people."
Figures is uncontested for the Democratic nomination, so he won't be on the special primary ballot Tuesday.
Republicans see opportunity
But with the promise of a flipped district, now six Republicans are vying for the nomination. Before redistricting there was just one — 29-year-old Hampton Harris. He says between all the court rulings and the legislative redistricting he was at one point running in essentially half the state.
"I was confused as the candidate — for the people that don't really pay attention to politics, I'm sure it's going to be extremely confusing," Harris said. "Being told 'it's now, it's then, it's here, it's there.' It's really going to play into voter turnout."
He's also a little worried people won't want to come out to vote in the sweltering August heat — on full display at a recent Republican Party event, where Harris is one of several candidates attending a forum hosted by Barbour County Republicans.
A big tent is set up behind a historic mansion, the tables adorned with red, white and blue flowers. Men are ditching their jackets and campaign brochures serve as makeshift fans.
"I'm glad that we've got maps that represent the people now," candidate Joshua McKee said as local officials agree.
"Whoever would have thought? We don't have anything in common with Mobile, Alabama. Yeah, that's the stupidest thing," Barbour County Commission President Jerry McGilvray said, cheering the new map. "I don't want to hear about shrimp boats and deep-sea fishing."
He's commenting on the fact that under the court-ordered map, this east Alabama town on the Georgia state line was in the same district as coastal Mobile, on the far west side of the state near Mississippi.
"That's when you let federal judges, who are not elected by anybody, decide how you can run your life, is what it amounts to," he said.
He says this area, part of Alabama's wiregrass region, is more aligned with rural, agricultural interests. McGilvray also thinks apathy will be widespread for this special primary so the local Republican Party is trying to get word out. He's particularly frustrated that state Democratic officials have urged Democrats to vote in the Republican primaries for candidates they perceive as weak, making them potentially easier to beat in a general election. Alabama has an open primary system.
The frontrunner in the 2nd Congressional District contest is state Rep. Rhett Marques, a businessman with President Trump's endorsement, as well as support from congressional leadership and Alabama's two Republican senators.
After redistricting, he switched from running in the 1st Congressional District in May to this newly drawn 2nd district. Marques sees it as a great opportunity. It's not just for Alabama, he says, but control of Congress could be at stake.
"This has been the way this district has been drawn for a long time, generations," he said. "The fact that the Republicans have an ability to regain the seat is great. I love it."
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