Their Own Pollster Put Him at 44. Registration Just Closed.

Wall of Shame — Today: Poarch Creek

Today on the Wall of Shame: the Poarch Band of Creek Indians (Atmore) has put $3,500 into Rep. Shomari Figures' campaign account. The Wall of Shame exists for one reason — so that total stops growing. https://take2back.com/wall-of-shame.html

THE LIST IS CLOSED

Voter registration for the August 11 special primary closed Monday night.

Whoever is on the rolls this morning is the entire universe of people who can vote in this district in two weeks. Nobody else gets added. Every argument any of us makes from here forward is aimed at people who are already registered, and the only question left is which of them actually show up.

If you are on the list, the rest of this newsletter is about you.

SIX REPUBLICANS, ONE STAGE, ONE SENTENCE IN COMMON

Monday night the Houston County Republican Party hosted a Meet the Candidates forum in Dothan, and for the first time this cycle every Republican on the August 11 ballot showed up to the same room. Hampton Harris, Christian Horn, Rhett Marques, David Matthews, Joshua McKee and James Richardson all took their turn.

WTVY covered it. So did the Associated Press, which sent a staff photographer and moved wire pictures of the evening under the slug "Election 2026 Alabama."

Stop and register that. A county party forum in Dothan, on a Monday night in July, pulled national wire photography. That does not happen to safe seats. It happens to seats the whole country has started watching.

The candidates talked about data centers and who ends up paying for the power they draw, about veteran care, about agriculture, about conflict overseas, and about the SAVE America Act, which passed the House and is sitting stalled in the Senate.

Six Republicans, six different biographies, six different pitches. WTVY reported that all six of them said the same thing about November: this seat should flip.

WASHINGTON IS BUYING AIR TIME HERE

There is a kind of money that never shows up in a candidate's own report at all, because it is not his. Outside groups spend it on their own, and it is disclosed separately.

On June 23 a Washington super PAC called the Rolling Sea Action Fund reported spending $100,000 on radio and digital advertising supporting Shomari Figures in this district.

Rolling Sea is a hybrid PAC founded in 2023 by allies of the Congressional Black Caucus. Its stated purpose, in its own launch coverage, is flipping the House majority to the Democrats and making Hakeem Jeffries Speaker of the House. Its founding executive director is the former political director of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC.

That is $100,000 of national money, from a committee whose reason for existing is the national Democratic majority, spent on advertising here in June. Nobody in the Wiregrass asked for it. It arrived because a committee in Washington ran the numbers on this district and decided the seat was worth defending.

That is money spent in the Wiregrass that was raised, argued over and committed somewhere else. Nobody here was consulted, and nobody here can vote on it.

THE NUMBER HIS OWN PARTY PAID FOR

The honest caveat first, because you will hear it thrown at us: this poll is not new. It was taken June 22 through 25 and first reported on July 13. Anybody who tells you it is fresh is wrong, including the television report Monday night that called it new. Five weeks is a long time in a campaign.

Now the number.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — the national committee whose entire job is electing House Democrats — paid IMPACT Research to poll 400 likely voters in this district. Then they published the result themselves.

Their own incumbent came back at 44 percent. Behind.

An incumbent congressman, in the seat he currently holds, polling under 45 in a survey his own party commissioned and then chose to release. They released it anyway, because the alternative was letting somebody else report it first.

And it is not an isolated data point. Shomari Figures sits on the DCCC's Frontline list, which is the program the committee runs for the incumbents it considers most likely to lose. In June the Cook Political Report moved this district from Safe Republican to Lean Republican. President Trump carried these lines by 14 points in 2024.

DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene's statement on her own polling was that it showed Alabamians "poised to reject Republicans' cynical politics and re-elect Shomari."

That is what a chair says. It is not what a 44 says.

WHAT WE ARE LEAVING OUT, AND WHY

Same position as yesterday, and it has not moved overnight.

Take Back District 2 does not have a favorite among the six. We are against the incumbent, and on August 11 we are for whoever the Republican voters of this district pick.

So two things stay out of this newsletter.

The DCCC poll tested one specific Republican by name against Figures. We are not printing which one, for the same reason we would not print the name the Democratic Party's vice chair floated last week.

And outside money is moving on the Republican side of this race too — considerably more of it than the $100,000 on the Democratic side. We know the committees and the amounts, because independent expenditures are public and we read them. We are not itemizing them here, because that money sits behind particular candidates in a contested primary, and printing that ledger would amount to printing an endorsement.

After August 11 that changes. When there is one Republican nominee, every dollar on both sides of this race is fair game, and we will publish all of it.

Until then it is public, it is at the FEC, and we would rather you go look yourself than take anybody's summary, including ours.

THE RECORD IS FINISHED

The House is in a district work period and no floor votes are expected until late August. Roll call 283, taken July 23, is the last recorded vote posted by the Clerk — we checked again this morning.

Which means the voting record Shomari Figures carries into this election is now closed. Whatever is in it is in it. Nothing gets added, nothing gets softened, and there are no more chances to cast a convenient vote between now and the day people mark ballots.

We have spent this summer documenting that record vote by vote, with the roll call numbers and the inconvenient caveats included every time. It is all in the archive at take2back.com. He will run on that record in November. It is worth knowing before then.

THE DATES THAT ARE LEFT

Tuesday, August 4 — the last day for the county Absentee Election Manager to receive a mailed absentee ballot application.

Thursday, August 6 — the last day to hand-deliver an absentee application.

Monday, August 10 — hand-returned absentee ballots due in the office by 5 p.m.

Tuesday, August 11 — polls open. Mailed absentee ballots must be received by noon. Whoever gets the most votes wins. There is no runoff, no second chance, and no majority required.

Fourteen days.