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Alabama | District 2 | 2010
Southeast corner: part of Montgomery
2010 Winner: Rep. Martha Roby
Party: Republican
Winning Percentage: 51%
Incumbent
Rep. Bobby Bright
Party: Democrat
Last Incumbent Percentage: 50%
Republicans
Martha Roby, Montgomery City Councilwoman (1)
AL-02 Update
October 8, 2010
AL-02
Bobby Bright (D)
Toss Up All summer, we waited for GOP Montgomery Councilwoman Martha Roby to make her move, and it finally appears as if she’s closing in on Bright, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House. Both the DCCC and the NRCC, and both candidates, were up with ads by the end of September, not surprising considering the inexpensiveness of advertising in Montgomery. While Roby sounds a bit like a one-note candidacy for hammering Speaker Pelosi’s gavel, Bright is up with an ad bragging he voted with GOP leader John Boehner 80 percent of the time.
While internal Bright polls continue to show him with a lead in the high single digits, new GOP internal polling shows this race a dead heat. We always knew Bright’s head start would begin to evaporate, and we aren’t quite ready to move this race into the Toss Up column, but the American Future Fund has laid down $414,000 to hit Bright and that may give Republicans a needed boost. Bright is still holding onto some GOP support with endorsements from the NRA Political Victory Fund and National Right to Life PAC. This isn’t the Bright blowout some Democrats expected in the spring.
AL-02 Update
March 11, 2010
AL-02 Bobby Bright Toss Up to Lean D
Pegged as one of the handful of most vulnerable Democrats since the outset of the cycle, Bright has bet that styling himself as a nonpartisan congressman - much as he was the nonpartisan mayor of Montgomery for much of the last decade - and voting against President Obama's agenda would endear him to midterm voters. So far, so good. Bright was one of only three House Democrats to vote against the stimulus package, the energy bill, and health care bill, and a February poll conducted for his campaign by Anzalone Liszt Research showed him leading his top GOP opponent, Montgomery Councilwoman Martha Roby, 54 percent to 30 percent, a finding undisputed by GOP insiders tracking the race.
It is wisest to view this lead as a "head start" and we expect this gap to narrow somewhat as the cycle progresses and polarizes and Republicans harangue Bright as "another vote for Pelosi" as speaker. But even Republican insiders admit that Bright is outworking Roby and that his life story is almost perfectly tailored to this overwhelmingly conservative district. Furthermore, midterm voters are somewhat less likely to vote a straight ticket and this is one heavily Republican district - unlike, say Idaho Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick's - where voters are used to casting ballots for the "right kind of Democrat" at the local level. For now, this race joins the Lean Democratic column.
September 17, 2009
This southeastern Alabama district has three distinct parts: portions of the capital city of Montgomery, the suburban Montgomery counties of Autauga and Elmore to the north, and the rural, agricultural-based Wiregrass counties to the south. While the first component is politically divided, the latter two are heavily Republican and have been getting more so every year.
As such, when popular veteran GOP Rep. Terry Everett decided to retire in 2008 after 16 years, Democrats knew they would have no shot at winning this seat unless they got the candidate they wanted, and even then, they knew just about everything would have go right. As it turned out, they got their man, nonpartisan Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright, and just about everything went wrong for the GOP. Bright squeaked out a 1,800 vote victory while McCain carried the district with 63 percent.
Bright is almost certainly the only person who could have allowed Democrats to add this heavily GOP seat to their tally on Election Night 2008, mostly because his background was perfectly suited to appeal to voters in all reaches of the district. Born to a large family of sharecroppers in the Wiregrass, he opened up a law practice in Montgomery in 1983 and was elected to the nonpartisan position of mayor in 1999, running on a message of racial unity. A highly visible figure in the Montgomery media market, Bright sailed to reelection in both 2003 and 2007.
Just because Bright agreed to run as a Democrat in 2008 doesn’t mean he has always considered himself a Democrat; in fact, he says he voted for Mike Huckabee in the February 2008 presidential primary and was courted by both parties to run for Everett’s seat. This allowed him to deflect Republican charges that he would morph into a Nancy Pelosi-style liberal in the House.
But the deciding factor in Bright’s slim victory over GOP businessman and state legislator Jay Love was lingering ill will from the Republican primary. Love, a young movement conservative from Montgomery, defeated Wiregrass state Sen. Harri Anne Smith after spending hundreds of thousands of his personal money attacking Smith’s legislative record on taxes. Smith, along with GOP Dothan Mayor Pat Thomas, ended up endorsing Bright in the general election, helping to keep Love’s margins in the southern counties down.
As there are only two Democrats in the House who represent districts more Republican than this one, Bright will undoubtedly be a top GOP target in 2010. Republicans express optimism that they will be able to show a united front this time, and have coalesced around Montgomery Councilwoman Martha Roby, who at age 33 is 24 years younger than Bright. Roby posted $125,000 in the bank at the end of June.
Because Obama will not be on the ballot, Bright may not be able to count on as high a share of black turnout as he enjoyed in 2008 (the district is 30 percent black), and the slightest national breeze towards the GOP in 2010 could present him with big problems back home. But he will be the incumbent this time around, and so far he has broken with House Democratic leadership on just about every major vote. He is also off to a better fundraising start than he was last year, having raised $542,000 in the first half of the year.
It won’t take much for Roby and Republicans to match Bright dollar for dollar in this relatively inexpensive district. The question is whether Roby, who hasn't been tested as a candidate beyond her city council district in Montgomery, will be able to cut it in the rural Wiregrass region where Bright won huge crossover support in 2008. Roby may also have trouble outlining how she will act differently in office from Bright, who donned a "Fire Congress" tee shirt when confronted by anti-tax activists earlier this year.
This is a seat Republicans badly hope to recapture on their way to making large gains next year, and if Bright were to survive 2010, it’s possible he could receive more favorable lines in 2012 if Democrats have a seat at the redistricting table.
Expect a very competitive race in which Roby and Republicans mention Speaker Nancy Pelosi's name at every opportunity.
