There are several small-to-medium-sized cities spread throughout the district.
Fort Novosel and
Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base are both within its bounds, as is
Troy University. White voters here were among the first in Alabama to shift from the Democratic Party; the old-line Southern Democrats in this area began splitting their tickets as early as the 1950s. Southeast Alabama is one of the most Republican regions in both Alabama and the nation. It has only supported a Democrat for president once since 1956, when
Jimmy Carter carried it in 1976. In 2008, voters elected three-term mayor of Montgomery
Bobby Bright to Congress, making him the first Democrat to hold the seat since 1964. Bright then lost reelection to Republican
Martha Roby in 2010, who was a member of the Montgomery City Council. Roby did not run for reelection in the 2020 election, and Republican
Barry Moore was elected to the open seat. At the state and local level, however, conservative Democrats continued to hold most offices as late as 2002. In the
2008 United States presidential election, voters gave
John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, 63.42% of the vote;
Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, received 36.05%, attracting voters beyond the substantial (and expected) African-American minority. The district gives its congressmen very long tenures in Washington; only six people have represented it from 1923 to 2021, with five of six holding it for at least 10 years and four of six holding it for at least 15 years. Barry Moore, elected in 2021, represented the district when it was redrawn in 2023; since the district was redrawn, he has continued his congressional career in the neighboring 1st district. The new 2nd district includes the heavier African American communities of
Butler,
Macon,
Monroe,
Pike, and
Russell counties as well as the state capital of
Montgomery, Alabama. ==Counties and communities within the district==