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On Monday, Caroleene Dobson, the Republican nominee for Alabama’s recently redrawn 2nd Congressional District, was selected as one of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Guns.” Twenty-five other Republican candidates from across the country were also selected.
The current representative from the 2nd District is Congressman Barry Moore. However, after the borders of the district were finally redrawn due to a Supreme Court order to comply with the Voting Rights Act, Moore chose to seek the Republican nomination in Alabama’s 1st District.
Dobson will be facing Democratic nominee Shomari Figures this November, in a race Republicans seem to think they can win even after the incumbent changed districts and successfully primaried fellow Alabama Congressman Jerry Carl to stay in Congress.
NRCC spokesperson Delanie Bomar said “Dobson is in a prime position to keep Alabama’s 2nd District red and help grow our House majority in November” in a statement announcing Dobson’s induction into the Young Guns program.
On X, formerly Twitter, Dobson said that she was “honored to be named a NRCC Young Gun and proud to be running a strong, competitive campaign in the battle for the future of our country.”
As a Young Gun, Dobson will receive additional training and support from the NRCC, which is already highlighting her on their website. This is likely to add to her pre-existing financial advantage over Figures.
In addition to loaning her campaign over $1 million, Dobson raised over $550,000 between April and June. Figures only raised $478,000 during the same time period. He has also loaned his campaign far, far less money than Dobson has.
But despite her fundraising advantage, and despite her selection as a Young Gun, Dobson is still the underdog in the upcoming election.
Alabama’s 2nd Congressional district is not classified as a “solid Democrat” seat by Cook Political Reports, but it is a “likely Democrat” victory according to their analysis. That means the race is “not considered competitive at this point but [has] the potential to become engaged.”
In 2020, voters in the 2nd district’s current borders voted for Joe Biden by a +12 margin. While Congressional candidates have won districts and states with more unfriendly partisan leans (e.g. Senator Jon Tester, D-Montana), it remains a very rare occurrence.
And the only major poll of the race so far, paid for by a conservative PAC supporting Dobson, found 37 percent of voters plan to support Figures and around 34 percent plan to support Dobson.
But despite Figures’ lead in that poll being fairly narrow, a majority of the 29 percent of respondents who reported being undecided are still likely to support him this November.
55.4 percent of the 1000 Alabamians polled reported being Democrats while only 44.6 percent identified as Republicans. Unless Dobson is able to garner significant support from Democratic voters, Figures remains the likely next congressman from Alabama’s 2nd District.
