Shomari Figures

Shomari Figures is the Democratic congressman for Alabama's 2nd District, centred on Mobile, and only the second Black congressman Alabama has sent to Washington in the modern era. He was first elected in 2024, winning a seat that was created by a federal court order requiring Alabama to draw a second majority-Black district after the Supreme Court's Allen v. Milligan ruling. The post-Callais redistricting has now eliminated that seat: the new map reverts to a configuration where no majority-Black district exists in the state, and the results of the four primaries held on 19 May 2026 under the old map will be declared void.

Figures previously served as a state legislator and as a Biden White House aide. His 2024 victory was widely seen as the delayed fulfilment of the court order Alabama had resisted for years. The re-do special primary scheduled by Governor Kay Ivey for 11 August 2026 will be contested under a map that makes Figures's re-election mathematically very difficult.

The elimination of Figures's seat illustrates a broader pattern: post-Callais, states are using the new precedential landscape to reverse court-ordered majority-minority districts that were themselves the product of years of voting-rights litigation. Whether the Voting Rights Act can restore the Mobile district is now an open question the courts may revisit after 2026.