# AL-02 — 2026 U.S. House Race **General election: [[Shomari Figures]] (D, incumbent) vs. [[Rhett Marques]] (R). The seat Figures won in 2024 has been redrawn underneath him.** This is the rare House race where the central fact is not the candidates but the map. Figures won Alabama's 2nd district in 2024 under a **court-ordered** boundary with a **48.7%** Black voting-age population — a district drawn because federal judges found Alabama had illegally diluted Black voting strength. He is running for re-election in 2026 in a district the **Alabama Legislature** redrew, with a Black voting-age population of **39.9%** and a [[Cook Political Report]] partisan lean of **R+7**. The same voter, in the same state, in consecutive elections, in a district that changed character between them. ## How the district changed - **2024** — Figures is elected under a map imposed by a federal court after a three-judge panel found Alabama's legislature-drawn plan violated Section 2 of the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]]. The litigation line runs through [[Allen v. Milligan]]. His win gave Alabama two Black members of Congress for the first time in the state's history. - **April 2026** — the U.S. Supreme Court substantially weakens Section 2 in **[[Louisiana v. Callais]]**. - **May 2026** — with Section 2 narrowed, the **2023 legislature-passed map** — the plan the federal panel had ruled discriminatory — is put back in place for 2026. - **The ballot is reset.** The May 19 primary results, run under the 2024 court-ordered lines, are voided. A special legislative session sets a special primary, with runoffs on June 16. - **Net effect:** Black voting-age population falls from **48.7%** to **39.9%**, and a seat that elected a Democrat in 2024 carries an R+7 lean into 2026. This is the clearest single illustration in the 2026 cycle of what *Callais* did in practice. The legal change was abstract; the consequence is a specific district, a specific incumbent, and a specific ballot that had to be run twice. ## Candidates - **[[Shomari Figures]]** (D) — the incumbent, from Mobile, elected 2024, previously a U.S. Department of Justice official. First representative of the court-ordered district. - **[[Rhett Marques]]** (R) — state representative from Enterprise and a Coffee County native, endorsed by [[Donald Trump]]. He originally ran in the 1st district under the 2024 map and switched to the 2nd when the lines moved, on residency. He won Coffee County with more than 60% in the special primary, and had raised **$1.32 million** as of the July 22 reporting cutoff. ## Ratings and polling - **Cook Political Report partisan lean: R+7** on the 2023 map. - **Race rating: Lean Republican**, moved from Likely Republican — reported October 23, 2026 as a signal of a more competitive race than the map alone implies. - An **internal Democratic poll** published in July found the two candidates in a statistical tie among 400 likely voters. It is a campaign-released internal survey and should be read as such. - Local analysts in late October described the race as turning on closing messages and turnout, with roughly a **$1 million** fundraising gap between the two campaigns. ## Outside money **DMFI PAC — $1,999,145.00 supporting Shomari Figures.** On e-file receipt date **2026-10-26**, eight days before the election, **[[DMFI PAC]]** (FEC **C00710848**) disclosed a single Schedule E line of **$1,999,145.00** supporting Figures, placed through Midpoint Media LLC. Expenditure date 2026-10-24, election code `G2026`, Form 24 file **2042263**. That was **the largest single-candidate independent-expenditure line filed anywhere in the country that day, in either chamber** — larger than any committee's line in any Senate race on the same tranche. A committee putting two million dollars behind one House member in the closing week is a concentrated bet, and it is consistent with a seat its backers read as genuinely at risk. > [!warning] The closing-week record for this race is incomplete > The [[FEC Electronic Filing Outage October 2026]] took the Federal Election Commission's filing > system down from the evening of October 26 through all of October 27, so **no independent-expenditure > notice filed in that window has reached the public record.** Any outside spending in this race during > the blackout is not yet disclosed, and the log below should be read as a floor rather than a total. ### Outside-money log | Receipt date | Committee | FEC ID | Amount | Direction | Vendor | File | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | 2026-10-26 | DMFI PAC | C00710848 | $1,999,145.00 | Support Figures | Midpoint Media LLC | 2042263 | ## Why it's on the map AL-02 is where the 2026 cycle's redistricting story becomes a single ballot. The [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]] was narrowed in April; by May a district had been redrawn; by June a primary had been re-run; by November an incumbent elected under the old lines is defending a seat that now leans seven points against him. Whatever the result, the race is the practical test of what *Callais* changed. ## See Also - [[Shomari Figures]] — the incumbent - [[Rhett Marques]] — the challenger - [[Louisiana v. Callais]] — the April 2026 decision that made the redraw possible - [[Allen v. Milligan]] — the litigation that produced the 2024 court-ordered district - [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]] — the statute at issue - [[DMFI PAC]] — the committee behind the race's largest disclosed outside buy - [[FEC Electronic Filing Outage October 2026]] — why the closing-week spending record has a hole in it - [[2026 House Races Hub]] — all tracked House races