Mobile’s Mardi Gras Park was awash in red, white, and blue as the non-profit groups “Alabama Forward,” “Shake The Field,” “Transform Alabama” and others held a get-out-the-vote event ahead of the November election. The rally called “Democracy: Now Or Never,” came as Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly held one on interviews with the front runners to be her running mate against Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Mobile’s grassroots voter registration effort also occurred in the shadow of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to carve the new U.S. House District 2 in the State’s “Black Belt” region. Executive director Deanna Fowler says President Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race. and Vice President Harris strong start, is energizing her group…
“To be honest, I feel much more hopeful. I think the energy is much better,” said Fowler. “Now we're still in a place of the unknown with what the court is going to do with our case, and there's still uphill battle, but I think the people are energized, so that's always something that's uplifting to hear.”
Alabama Forward and the other groups spent the day registering voters in Mobile County, the northwestern part of which is included in the new Congressional District 2, which was ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to better represent the estimated 27% of the State’s population which is African American. The court case that created the new District 2 is still being litigated, which is leaving some supporters of the new minority majority U.S. House District uneasy about a possible upcoming SCOTUS follow-up ruling that could overturn the new voting map. Fowler says the effort is ongoing…
“We’re continuing to talk about the importance of redistricting, how the case is still ongoing, being litigated,” said Fowler. “You know what that could mean, depending on which way that you know is decided, and then preparing for work, leading up to the Census and then the next redistricting cycle, which happens every 10 years.”
Today’s voter drive in Mobile’s Mardi Gras park was preceded by a community volunteer networking session include local groups like the NAACP and Transform Alabama, which uses Hip Hop to motivate voter participation. Fowler says her job to help focus all of these individual efforts into a collaboration to build democratic representation for the State’s African American community.
“They're doing the hands-on voter registration, education, and so Alabama forward serves as a coordinating space so that as national resources come into the state, it has one place to kind of go. And then the groups work together to coordinate, collaborate on projects and efforts through campaigns that we do, through our table field plan, where that's really where we do a lot of our voter engagement work, and then their individual organizations, activities and events.”
The Associated press reports Vice President Kamala Harris is interviewing a half-dozen potential running mates this weekend ahead of a formal announcement and a battleground tour with her new number two next week. Her interview list includes Governors Andy Beshear of Kentucky, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Tim Walz of Minnesota, as well as Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. According to two people with knowledge of Harris’ selection process. The people were granted anonymity to discuss private campaign deliberations. Shapiro and Kelly had been viewed as among the front-runners during her truncated selection process, which began with the vetting of about a dozen names.
