Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed endorses Shomari Figures in Alabama congressional race

Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, who considered running for Congress in Alabama’s redrawn 2nd District but did not, endorsed Democratic nominee Shomari Figures of Mobile at a press conference today in Montgomery.

Figures faces Republican nominee Caroleene Dobson, a Montgomery attorney, in the Nov. 5 general election.

Figures, who is also an attorney, worked in the Obama administration and in the U.S. Justice Department during the Biden administration, experience that Reed said would be an asset in Congress.

“He understands exactly what’s at stake, from expanding health care access, to protecting to voting rights, to ensuring our education system remains strong, creating jobs, helping us combat problems in our community, and making sure that we look after our military, our veterans,” Reed said.

Montgomery is a key city in the redrawn 2nd District, and the mayor’s endorsement comes in a race where Democrats have a chance to flip a Republican seat.

A federal court ordered a new Alabama congressional map after finding that the plan passed by the Legislature likely violated the Voting Rights Act by packing Black voters into a single majority Black district, District 7.

The new District 2 includes all or part of 13 counties from the Georgia line to the Mississippi line. It includes all of Montgomery and 90% of the city of Mobile.

The Black voting age population in the district is 49%. Analyses in the federal court case showed Black-preferred candidates, Democrats, received more votes than their opponents in 16 of 17 recent elections by an average margin of 10 percentage points.

But Reed cautioned against Democratic voters assuming they will claim the seat.

“It’s not a foregone conclusion,” Reed said. “It’s not something we should take for granted. It’s not something we can assume that will happen. It’s something that we have to make happen. The opportunity and the destiny is in our hands.”

Reed was elected as Montgomery’s first Black mayor in 2019 and reelected in 2023, receiving 57% of the vote. Reed said he was considering a run for Congress last October but announced in November that he would focus on his second term as mayor.

Figures reiterated comments he made during a speech at the Democratic National Convention last week when he talked about the importance of Montgomery and the 2nd District in the civil rights movement.

“I have said it before and I will say it again,” Figures said. “I think that Montgomery is the single most important American city in the 20th century because of the movement that was birthed out of here,” Figures said. “That is a sentiment that I know Mayor Reed has expressed in the past before and something that I genuinely believe, even as a son of Mobile.”

The Dobson campaign, asked for a comment on Reed’s endorsement of Figures, issued a statement from Dobson.

“I would like to congratulate Shomari Figures on the least surprising and most obvious endorsement in the history of Alabama politics,” Dobson said. “It’s like Joe Biden endorsing Kamala Harris.”