We Printed a Number Wrong. Here Is the Right One.

Wall of Shame — Today: Protective Life

Today on the Wall of Shame: the Protective Life Corp. Federal PAC (ProtectPAC) (Birmingham) has put $5,000 into Rep. Shomari Figures' campaign account. Two $2,500 checks across the cycle; Figures then voted no on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — the insurance and tax provisions Protective's own industry supported. The Wall of Shame exists for one reason — so that total stops growing. https://take2back.com/wall-of-shame.html

A CORRECTION, UP FRONT

We told you on July 3, and again yesterday, that a Washington super PAC called the Rolling Sea Action Fund spent $200,000 supporting Shomari Figures in this district on June 23.

The correct figure is $100,000.

Here is how we got it wrong, because you are entitled to know. Committees that spend money independently have to report a large expenditure twice — once in a fast twenty-four-hour notice, and again weeks later in their regular periodic report. Both filings appear in the public record. We counted the notice and the report as two separate hundred-thousand-dollar buys. They were one.

The mistake was ours. It was not the committee's, and nobody misled us. We have corrected the figure on our archive page for yesterday's brief and we are correcting it here, at the top, where you will actually read it.

The point that section was making does not change. It gets stronger. We will come back to that below.

THE THING WE GOT RIGHT WAS THE DIRECTION

Now that we have gone back through the filings properly, here is the full picture of outside money in this district, cleaned of the double-counting we just described.

Three committees have reported spending a combined $826,016.95 supporting a single Republican candidate in this primary. Defending Our Values PAC accounts for $324,692.86, beginning July 20 with $148,575 of television and $80,000 of digital on one day, then two mail drops. Conservatives for American Excellence reported $255,005.88 in a single expenditure on July 9. Alabama Christian Conservatives has reported $246,318.21 across eight expenditures, the most recent on July 27.

On the other side, the Rolling Sea Action Fund's $100,000 is the entire outside investment in the Democratic incumbent.

So the ratio is not four to one. It is better than eight to one, and it is not the number we would have printed if we had wanted to make ourselves look good. We printed the wrong number in the direction that flattered our own argument less. That is what happens when you check.

WE ARE STILL NOT TELLING YOU WHO

Read Section 2 again and notice what is missing. We named three committees and one dollar figure and we did not tell you which Republican they are supporting.

That is deliberate and it is the same rule we have held since June. There are six Republicans on the August 11 ballot. We are not in the business of choosing among them, and we will not put our thumb on that scale three weeks out by telling you where the money is pointing.

You can find it yourself in an afternoon. The filings are public and they name the candidate. We are simply not going to do that work for you in a newsletter whose purpose is beating Shomari Figures in November, not sorting out a Republican primary in August.

After August 11 we will have a nominee, and everything we have will go behind that person.

WHAT THE MONEY ACTUALLY TELLS YOU

Here is the part worth sitting with.

Observers quoted in the Alabama Gazette expect turnout in this Republican primary to come in under thirty thousand votes. Set $826,017 of outside money against thirty thousand votes and you get roughly twenty-eight dollars for every ballot cast — before a single dollar the campaigns themselves are spending, which nobody has seen yet.

Nobody spends twenty-eight dollars a vote on a district they expect to lose.

That is the real signal, and it has nothing to do with which Republican benefits. Serious money does not arrive in a district three weeks out on sentiment. It arrives because people who spend money for a living have looked at this seat, under this map, and concluded it is winnable in November. The $100,000 on the other side is what defending a seat looks like when the people writing the checks are not sure it can be held.

THE CALENDAR IS THE THING NOW

Thursday, July 30 — campaign finance reports covering July 1 through July 22 are due. First look at what the campaigns themselves have spent.

Tuesday, August 4 — if you are voting absentee by mail, your application must be received by your county Absentee Election Manager. Not postmarked. Received.

Thursday, August 6 — 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 requirement.

ONE LAST THING ABOUT THE OTHER SIDE

The vice chair of the Alabama Democratic Party, Tabitha Isner, has publicly called on Democrats to vote in the Republican special primary in order to weaken whoever emerges. She has been denounced for it by leaders in both parties, which tells you something about how the idea landed.

We are not going to inflate this. There is no evidence of an organized crossover operation, and one official's statement is not a program. But in a plurality contest, with no runoff, and expected turnout under thirty thousand, it does not take an operation to matter. It takes a few thousand people deciding to spend a Tuesday in August choosing their opponent's nominee.

The answer to that is not outrage. It is turnout. Every Republican who shows up on August 11 makes that arithmetic worse for anyone trying it.

WHERE THIS LEAVES US

Thirteen days.

The registration list is closed and final. The outside money says this seat is considered winnable by people who are not sentimental. The incumbent's outside support is one check from June.

We got a number wrong and we fixed it in public. We would rather be the operation that does that than the one that hopes you were not paying attention.

Vote on August 11. Then we all go to work on November.