Add State Sen. Greg Albritton to the list of congressional candidates in Alabama’s Second District.
Albritton, R-Atmore, plans to officially announce his campaign this week in Mobile.
“I’ve represented this district for years, many of these counties,” Albritton told Alabama Daily News over the weekend. “I know the people, I know the problems. I’m the best one to represent this district and I intend to do so.”
Qualifying for the 2024 race ends Friday and more candidates for the newly redrawn and open district are expected. So far, announced candidates include another Republican, Caroleene Dobson, an attorney from Montgomery, and Democrat state lawmakers Sen. Kirk Hatcher of Montgomery, Napoleon Bracy of Mobile and Jeremy Gray of Opelika. Democrat Willie J. Lenard also qualified last week.
Meanwhile, Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, a Democrat recently elected to a second term, said on social media Saturday he won’t run for Congress and will instead focus on his current office.
“There is much more we need to accomplish here and I am excited for the opportunity to continue the work we started in 2019 over the next four years,” Reed said.
The district was redrawn this year under a court mandate to give Black voters a better chance of electing candidates of their choice in two of the state’s seven congressional districts. It now has a Black voting population of nearly 49%. State Republican party chairman John Wahl last week said the new district would be a challenge for Republicans but is winnable.
Albritton, a third-term senator and former House member, currently has his primary residences in Atmore, just south of the new border of the congressional district. If elected, he will move his official address back to Range, in Conecuh County and within District 2. He’d previously moved to Atmore when his Senate district lines were changed, taking Conecuh County out.
Albritton has been the Senate’s General Fund budget chairman since the 2019 session. That position makes him one of the more high-profile lawmakers, but that’s been especially so since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as he and a handful of others have crafted bills to spend billions of dollars in CARES Act and American Rescue Plan Act money received by the state.
Albritton’s current Senate District 22 includes all of Escambia and Washington counties and portions of Mobile and Baldwin counties.
The new congressional District 2 stretches across the state from Washington County on the Mississippi side to Russell and Barbour counties on the Georgia side. It now includes all of Montgomery County to the north and a northwest portion of Mobile County.
Albritton had about $337,500 in his Senate campaign fund at the end of 2022, money he could transfer to a congressional race.
