Rep. Barry Moore will challenge fellow GOP Rep. Jerry Carl in Alabama’s 1st District next year.
Shana Teehan, Moore’s chief of staff, confirmed that Moore planned to seek reelection in the 1st District after a court-ordered redraw of the state map moved his hometown of Enterprise from the 2nd District he now represents.
A federal court earlier this month ordered the state to use a new map for the 2024 elections, following years of litigation over the map drawn for the 2022 cycle. The Supreme Court found that the prior map violated the Voting Rights Act and denied opportunities to Black voters to elect candidates of their choice.
The new map gives Democrats a chance to pick up a second seat in Alabama, joining Rep. Terri Sewell, currently the state’s only Democratic member of Congress. Joe Biden in 2020 would have won the new 2nd District by 13 percentage points, whereas Biden lost the existing 2nd District by 29 points.
Moore, a member of the Agriculture and Judiciary committees, and Carl, a member of the Appropriations and Natural Resources committees, are both in their second terms. Moore, 57, is a member of the House Freedom Caucus and could draw support from the conservative Club for Growth PAC, which endorsed him in his first two campaigns.
“I am a true conservative, and the system doesn’t like a true conservative,” he told the 1819 News, a local Alabama news outlet. Moore said he planned to file on Monday, the ninth anniversary of when he was acquitted of lying to a grand jury during a corruption investigation of the then-Alabama House speaker.
“I became a conservative who was attacked by the swamp itself, but it was the Montgomery swamp at that time. That was the thing that changed the trajectory of my life that we felt we were called into this fight,” he told the outlet.
The announcement sets up the first member-on-member House primary of the 2024 cycle, to be held March 5.
Carl, a 65-year-old former Mobile County commissioner, welcomed the challenge.
“Bring it on,” Carl said in a statement. “I have a proven track record of putting Alabama first every day and delivering conservative results for Alabama’s First Congressional District. I’m not afraid to fight Biden’s radical, out of touch ideas or whatever else comes my way.”
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