• AL State House: A special election is taking place on Tuesday for one of the most competitive seats in the Alabama House of Representatives, and Democratic nominee Marilyn Lands is making support for reproductive rights a major part of her effort to flip the 10th District in suburban Huntsville.
While Republicans will continue to hold supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature no matter what, national Democrats will be closely watching for signs that the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling threatening in vitro fertilization could be a winning issue.
Lands, a mental health counselor, ran for this same seat last cycle but lost 52-45 to Republican David Cole. During that race, however, Cole faced allegations that he no longer lived in the district after the most recent round of redistricting placed his home in another constituency. (Alabama, like most states, imposes a residency requirement on legislative candidates.)
Those allegations proved to have merit: The freshman representative ultimately reached a deal with prosecutors in August under which he resigned and acknowledged that he'd pretended to live at the home of a friend.
Cole's scandal and subsequent 60-day jail sentence paved the way for Tuesday's special election, but they aren't the focus of Lands' new campaign. Rather, the Democrat has run ads centering on Alabama's near-total ban on abortion.
In one spot, Lands sits alongside a woman named Alyssa Gonzales, who tells the audience, "I was pregnant with a baby who had a fatal condition and would not survive, and because of Alabama's abortion ban, we had to drive 10 hours to get the medical care I needed." Lands responds, "I once faced a nearly identical situation, but was able to get the care I needed close to home. It's shameful that today women have fewer freedoms than I did two decades ago."
And it's not just abortion that's in the crosshairs of conservatives. Speaking of the Supreme Court's IVF decision, Lands told The 19th, "I didn't know that we could go any lower. And yet, we proved we're capable of that."
The Republican nominee, Madison City Councilman Teddy Powell, has preferred to concentrate on other issues, such as infrastructure. Powell also praised the legislature for passing a bill this month that protects IVF clinics from liability, though Lands argues the legislation is insufficient. Politico reports that Powell's campaign did film an ad on the topic but chose not to air it, a decision an adviser argued would "politicize" the topic.
As for abortion, Powell told CNN that he might be "open to looking" at adding in exemptions for rape and incest, though he didn't show much urgency in a separate interview with the Washington Post. "I mean, I'll address it. I think there's room for improvement in the law," he said, "but the law is what the law is. And it's been decided." He continued, "It's an issue that's been worked on and my personal opinion, it just really doesn't matter."
Powell similarly dismissed the electoral importance of reproductive rights in general to Politico, saying, "It's certainly an issue that needs to be dealt with, but not our top issue. I don't think that this is the issue that wins or loses the race."
Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden in the 10th District by a slim 49-48 spread, according to data from Dave's Redistricting App, which was the smallest margin of victory for either candidate in the entire 105-member chamber. Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, though, carried the seat that same day by a 52-47 margin despite losing reelection statewide in a landslide to Republican Tommy Tuberville.