His Own Party's Poll Has Him Losing to a Republican Who Doesn't Exist Yet.

Wall of Shame — Today: Austal USA

Today on the Wall of Shame: the Austal USA PAC (Mobile) has put $2,000 into Rep. Shomari Figures' campaign account. Figures then voted to halt Operation Epic Fury — while Austal-built Navy ships were deployed to the Persian Gulf. The Wall of Shame exists for one reason — so that total stops growing. https://take2back.com/wall-of-shame.html

WASHINGTON HAS PUT A PRICE ON THIS SEAT

Over the last two briefs we walked through what the Democratic Socialists of America published on July 14, and why almost no Democrat in Washington will say a word against it. Today the other half of the picture, which is what national Democrats think this district is worth.

On July 15 the National Journal reported, and Alabama Daily News carried, an internal Democratic survey of this district. The pollster is IMPACT Research. Four hundred likely voters, in the field June 22 through 25. The result they chose to release has Congressman Shomari Figures at forty-four percent, one point behind a Republican who has not yet been nominated.

Read that for what it is. This is not neutral measurement and it was not published to inform anybody in Alabama. A party releases a one-point number when it wants money and attention aimed at a seat. What the release tells you is not that the race is tied. It is that the people who allocate Democratic money in Washington have looked at Alabama's Second District and decided it is worth defending.

THE DISTRICT THEY ARE DEFENDING

The seat has changed underneath him. On June 2 the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama may use its 2023 legislature-drawn map for 2026. Under that map the Second District no longer takes in Mobile, and Black voting-age population falls from roughly forty-nine percent to under forty. Every account of the ruling at the time described a district reverting to Republican-leaning ground.

So the congressman is running in territory that did not elect him, with no primary of his own, while national Democrats poll the seat and publish the result. Whatever else that is, it is not confidence.

WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR

It is worth being plain about what the program those dollars defend actually proposes, because it is an economic argument before it is anything else. Public ownership of major industry. Universal rent control. Phasing out fossil fuels on a political timetable. These are not spending questions. They are questions about who decides — whether prices are set by millions of people trading voluntarily under stable rules, or by a committee that believes it can allocate better than the people closest to the decision.

That question has been answered repeatedly and expensively in the last century. Prices carry information no central body can gather. Rent control does not produce housing. Capital directed politically goes where the politics are, not where the need is. None of this is a matter of good intentions; it is a matter of what a planner can possibly know.

THE QUESTION THAT IS STILL UNANSWERED

We have asked it in each of the last two briefs and it has not been answered. Name one demand in that document Shomari Figures will publicly refuse.

Not a general statement about moderation. Not a press release about the district. One specific demand, named, refused. It has been a week since the program was published. Every Democrat in Congress has had time to read it and the congressman has said nothing about any part of it.

The silence is the position. A member who intended to break with the faction now setting terms inside his party would have done it by now, while the doing was cheap.

WHERE THIS GOES

Six Republicans are on the ballot on August 11. TakeBack District 2 takes no part in choosing among them and will not be drawn into it. That is a decision for Republican voters in this district and they are perfectly capable of making it without our help.

What we will do between now and then is keep the general election in view. The seat is winnable in a way it was not two years ago, Washington Democrats know it, and they have started spending accordingly. On August 12 there will be a Republican nominee, and this organization will be behind that nominee from the morning after.

TakeBack District 2 | July 21, 2026 Poll findings as reported by National Journal and Alabama Daily News, July 15, 2026. Map findings per the June 2, 2026 Supreme Court ruling as reported at the time.