If you live in the new 2nd Congressional District, you'll be voting in a runoff this Tuesday — the most intriguing and entertaining political race in Alabama this year.

This new district consists of all of Montgomery County and most of the rural counties surrounding Montgomery, including Macon, Lowndes, Bullock, Pike, Butler, Crenshaw, Barbour, and Russell. The district follows an arrow through the rural Black Belt counties and into Mobile, capturing most of Mobile's black voters.

This fraudulent districting was created by a federal court to create a new black Democratic district in the heart of Dixie. Currently, there are six Republicans and one Democrat in the Legislature. If the court's plan is successful and a new black representative is elected to join the only Democrat, Terri Sewell, the Potomac River region will be represented by two Democrats and five Republicans. The Democrats are expected to win the seat in November.

The Republican-controlled Alabama General Assembly fought hard to turn the state into a Democratic-leaning district, but their arguments to the court were woefully inadequate: Mobile County had never been divided, and the need to keep the county together for the sake of a “community of interest” was the exact opposite of what the court wanted, and spoke for the plaintiffs.

Those who know that part of the state will also know that the aforementioned seven counties surrounding Montgomery have a larger “community of interest” in Montgomery than Mobile/Pritchard black voters have in white-fugitive Baldwin County Republicans.

Half of the residents of the counties south of Montgomery have relatives, siblings, cousins ​​or grandchildren living in Montgomery. Most of these people moved to Montgomery from those counties for work or still live and commute there. They have been shopping in Montgomery, going to the doctor and watching Montgomery's TV stations for generations.

Bless the good people of Macon County. Tuskegee, the oldest Black city in the country, with the rich traditions of Tuskegee University, an HBCU, has been stuck at the bottom of the Republican rigged 3rd Congressional District for decades, and is represented by a white Republican from Anniston. You can't tell me that the good people of Macon County would feel safer and be better taken care of if they had a principled representative who knew their interests.

The Democratic runoff election is between Mobilian Shomali Figures and Huntsville State Rep. Anthony Daniels. You may be wondering how on earth a Huntsville state representative would run for Congress in South Alabama. Federal law doesn't require you to live in a district to run for Congress.

Many of Anthony's fellow legislators tried unsuccessfully to exploit this carpetbagging loophole to win what was perceived to be a vacant Democratic seat. Hometown candidate Shomali Figures blew them away, especially in her home county of Mobile. It also helped that Shomali's mother, Vivian Figures, is perhaps one of the most popular Democratic state senators in Port City history.

One of Figures' most notable victories in the March 5 primary was the astounding number of votes he received in Montgomery. Figures campaigned extensively in the two urban voting centers of Mobile and Montgomery, and it paid off: He won an astounding 50% of the vote in Mobile, meaning he beat all 10 of his opponents combined. Even more astounding was his 40% in Montgomery, where he swept past Joe Reed's vaunted ADC organization, which had endorsed Mobile State Representative Napoleon Blasey.

Bracy came in a distant third with 15% of the vote. It's no surprise that Bracy's votes will be coming in for his fellow Mobilians on Tuesday. Shomali Figures has a sizable lead heading into next week that is likely to remain strong.

In the Republican primary, former Montgomery state Sen. Dick Brewbaker led young attorney Carolyn Dobson, 39% to 27%. Brewbaker won most of the vote in his home county of Montgomery, receiving an astounding 67% of the vote. Carolyn would need to get in Mobile and the southern part of the new district to overtake him.

see you next week.

Steve Flowers' weekly column appears in more than 60 newspapers across Alabama. He served in the state Legislature for 16 years and can be reached at [email protected].