Congressional Quarterly has a very comprehensive analysis of the 2nd CD race in Alabama, explaining why they are tagging a race in one of the most conservative districts in the country as “Leans Republican”.
The 2nd District takes in about 128,000 residents of Montgomery (roughly two-thirds of the city’s population) and industrial Dothan. It has a sizable military sector as home to Fort Rucker in Dothan and Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery. The district also includes numerous small towns that dot the rural southern Alabama coastal plain” known locally as “the wiregrass” for the area’s perennial bunch grass can grow up to three feet tall.
“Someone with big name ID that can pull in the large vote area of Montgomery and has roots down into the wiregrass . . . I think will be a winning ticket,”said Jim Spearman, executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party.
Enter Bright, a conservative Democrat who was born and raised in the wiregrass region and who has built strong support in Montgomery, where he has been mayor since 1999, around his image as a conservative Democrat.
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