OAN Staff Addie Davis
9:57 AM – Wednesday, August 12, 2026
After the Supreme Court paved the way for Alabama to use its 2023 congressional map, the state conducted special primary races for the affected districts ahead of the pivotal November general elections.
Two candidates backed by President Donald Trump won their respective races in the Republican special primary on Tuesday: former U.S. Representative Jerry Carl, who won his race with nearly 75% of the vote for the First Congressional District, and state Representative Rhett Marques, who won his race with 50% of the vote for the Second Congressional District, according to the Associated Press.
Marques is seeking to unseat incumbent Shomari Figures (D-Ala.), who won his race uncontested. The redistricting acutely changed the district and is expected to favor Republicans.
Incumbent Gary Palmer (R-Ala.), who received Trump’s endorsement in 2023, is running for reelection in the Sixth Congressional District, where he easily won with 87% of the vote on Tuesday. He will be facing Democrat challenger Maurice Mercer, who won more than 64% of the vote in his primary, in November. Mercer’s race was the only Democrat primary that was contested, according to the AP.
In the Seventh Congressional District, which includes the city of Birmingham, Ammie Akin, who won in a landslide with more than 73% of the vote, is looking to unseat the long-serving U.S. Representative Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), who is running for a ninth term, per the AP.
The special primary is the culmination of years of redistricting battles in the state. According to the nonpartisan website 270toWin, redistricting ahead of the 2022 election led to legal challenges under the Voting Rights Act, despite the map being little changed from the previous one the state had been using for a decade.
That legal challenge led to the creation of a second majority-minority district that was used in 2024. However, following the Supreme Court allowing the state legislature to implement a redistricting plan created in 2023, the second district again favors Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms, though the race is far from decided, 270toWin explained.
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