Alabama’s Second District could determine control of the House of Representatives, and Republican nominee Caroleene Dobson is upending conventional wisdom about the new district by running neck-and-neck with a former Obama and Biden administration official.
Dobson joined host Matt Boyle on Breitbart News Saturday to discuss her head-turning competitive race in the open seat newly carved by federal courts. Dobson said she felt compelled to run after learning of a successful lawsuit funded partly by national Democrats seeking to steal a seat in conservative Alabama.
“I’ve never run for office before,” Dobson told Boyle. “I grew up in the district, practice law here now. But I was not willing to stand by and just hand this seat over to a Democrat, especially given that it was an open seat. No one had claim to this seat, and also I thought even a D+4 was too close to call.”
Ruby red Alabama has seven congressional districts, currently represented by six Republicans and one Democrat in a district carved out in compliance with the Voting Rights Act. But even with more extreme gerrymandering triggered by the court ruling — which required two districts in which minority voters have a better chance of electing a candidate — the courts had trouble carving out two majority-minority districts in the ultra-conservative state, ultimately creating a purple-ish Second District.
A strong showing there from Dobson — along with uncertainty atop the national Democratic ticket — has created fear for Democrats and put the race on the radar of Republicans across the country.
Democrats “got this second district that they thought was going to be a layup for them to take a seat away from the Republicans,” Boyle said. “It turns out that maybe they aren’t,” adding that Dobson is “running far stronger than the Democrats expected. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ candidate is a total radical and getting blown up, not doing so well.”
Dobson said her district, which “encompasses part of Mobile, all of Montgomery, and – where I’m from – rural southwest Alabama,” is out of step with national Democrats, and voters want someone who will fight for their interests, not Washington party bosses. “I grew up in a town of less than 200,” she said. “It’s a lot of rural areas, and small towns who increasingly feel left behind by both parties in Washington.”
The new district is more receptive to her conservative, district-first message than Democrats had gambled. Dobson said the new district after redistricting “is technically a D-plus-four district. So you know, 52-48, Democrat, Republican. And the mainstream narrative when the district lines were redrawn in October was this was unequivocally a Democrat pick-up, a blue seat. And it was saddening that a lot of Republicans bought into this.”
She continued, “but then you look at the March 5 primary, there was only a 161-vote difference between the total number of Democrats and the total number of Republicans that showed up to vote, and since then, we’ve just had incredible momentum,” adding that at “the end of the second quarter, we actually outraised my Democrat opponent.”
Dobson’s opponent in November is Shomari Figures, an attorney who lived in Washington until running for office in Alabama.
Figures “had worked for Obama, had worked for Biden, ostensibly had access to all the big Democrat donor lists,” Dobson told Boyle. “So we were really excited to have outraised him by about $50,000 [in the second quarter of 2024]. So we’re just trying to keep plugging ahead and save the seat because now’s the time to fight for the seat. It’s so much more difficult to try to unseat a Democrat incumbent, but we really feel very optimistic about winning in November.”
Boyle noted that a Democrat win in the district would be “a massive setback for the Republicans and a massive pick up for them, telling Dobson, “if you’re able to hold this seat, this the whole house majority in a very close election could come down to Alabama second congressional district.”
Dobson said Republicans in Washington are beginning to pay attention after learning more about the race.
“I got to represent Alabama as an alternate delegate in Milwaukee this past week,” she said. “That was also invaluable as far as letting folks know about this, right? Because, as you said, this wasn’t characterized as a tossup district. This was a new Democrat seat. And so it’s been trying to let people know that this is — you may think this is a sleeper race, but we really have an opportunity here.”
Dobson characterized the Democrat voters in the district as much different than the progressive coastal liberal she is running against.
“The Democrat base in Alabama’s second congressional district is fairly moderate,” she told Boyle. “You know, most of the Democrats in South Alabama are still churchgoing and God-fearing, and they feel like the party has left them.”
Those district characteristics have propelled her insurgent campaign against Figures, the scion of a Democratic political family in Alabama who parachuted into the district after over a decade in the nation’s capital as a national Democratic Party political operative.
“My opponent, on the other hand, does not really reflect that,” Dobson said, contrasting his work for radical left-wing politics with the voters inside the district. “He’s been in Washington for over 10 years now working for Obama, for Sherrod Brown, was part of Biden’s transition team, worked in Merrick Garland’s weaponized DOJ. So he doesn’t really reflect where even the Democrat base in Alabama is. And I think again, more and more of them on the trail, especially Democrats in small town America, really feel as though the party has left them.”
Dobson praised Donald Trump’s choice of Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) as his running mate, characterizing his American story of rising from poverty as relatable to working Americans.
“He’s young. He shows that the Republican Party is not just a party of geriatrics,” she told Boyle. “He also shows that the Republican Party is the party of self-made Americans.”
She continued, “you know, the elites are not in the Republican Party. They’re over on the far-left telling us how best to live our lives. So I’m really grateful for the choice in him, and as you know, Trump is polling higher than ever with non-traditional Republican voters, and I think JD Vance was also a really compelling choice to that effect.”
Boyle contrasted Dobson’s story — from a farm upbringing to becoming an attorney and entering politics — with her opponent’s far different background, tying him to national Democrat Party policies unpopular inside the Alabama district.
“You’ve worked very hard to get to where you are, and your opponent … worked for Joe Biden’s transition team,” Boyle said. “So if you like what the policies are that are coming out of Washington, DC, like Biden destroying American energy, the inflation policies, the border, etc., this is the guy who’s responsible for that stuff.”
“I think if you, you know, as opposed to maybe sort of a homegrown, local Democrat who could maybe disclaim or try to distance themselves from Biden — which I’m sure most Democrats of that ilk are trying to do — my opponent as has been right there, part of the problem,” she said, continuing:
You look at Biden’s transition team, okay. What did Biden do this first 100 days? He opened the border, he cancelled the Keystone pipeline, he revoked the Regulatory Bill of Rights. So, really detrimental impacts that we’ve been paying for the past three and a half years. In contrast, I’ve never been in politics. I grew up on a farm in the district. I went to Harvard for undergrad where I was with the Harvard Republicans, and it’s been fun to reconnect with some of those.
I’m very grateful to have been endorsed by Congresswoman [Elise] Stefanik from New York. She has been such an advocate for me in giving attention to this race. I’m so grateful for her example. Then went to Baylor for law school in Texas and then moved back to Alabama about five years ago with my husband because Alabama, South Alabama, was where I wanted to raise my kids.
Dobson railed on Figures for only moving back to Alabama in order to return to Washington as an elected official.
“I certainly didn’t move here to run for office, whereas my opponent started leasing an apartment in the district two days before the filing deadline.” She added:
I just felt called to run because I think our kids have got to have opportunities. Our communities have got to be safe. I’m so proud to be from this part of Alabama, but we’re suffering from brain drain because we don’t have opportunities for young people because of Bidenomics and its disproportionately crushing impact on small businesses, which make up so much of this district. And our communities are increasingly unsafe due to policies that reward criminals, that are lenient on crime — starting in the Obama administration, certainly continuing in the Biden administration, and Merrick Garland’s DOJ.
“Folks, this is a real important one because the whole House majority could come down to this one,” Boyle told listeners. “So it could be the difference between Speaker Hakeem Jeffries and a Republican Speaker.”
Dobson pointed out that donations to her race in the rural district can be stretched further than other expensive races across the nation.
“We, of course, appreciate prayers, but we’ve also got boots on the ground opportunities,” she said. “And then of course, obviously, financial support always goes a long way. But especially in this district, this is probably the cheapest of all of the swing districts. This cycle. It’s about $40,000 a week to get TV and in this district as opposed to two million in some others.”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
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