MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – Candidates in the closely watched Alabama 2nd Congressional District race will make their closing arguments in a contest on Monday. help decide on control of the House of Representatives.

The figures of Republican Caroleene Dobson and Democrat Shomari spent nearly $2 million in a race that has drawn national attention because it is one of several dozen deemed competitive. This is the first election since a panel of federal judges last year. ordered a radical redrawing of the region. In a few hours, it will be the voters’ turn.

The new district now has a black majority and includes most of the city of Mobile, is located in northwest Mobile County, and extends across the Black Belt into Montgomery County and then to the Georgia line.

Dobson, a real estate attorney from Montgomery, spent the morning in Mobile touring the Women’s Resource Center in the Downtowner Loop, across from a now-closed abortion clinic. The center provides support to pregnant women.

Democrat Shomari Figures, a former Justice Department official and scion of a prominent political family in Mobile, campaigned between her hometown and the northern parts of the district in Montgomery.

Dobson used the campaign stop to talk about health care.

“As many of you know, approximately one-third of Alabama’s 67 counties are designated as maternity care deserts,” he told reporters. “Over the past several years, there have been many counties closing or scaling back maternity services.”

That number includes the delivery room at Monroe County Hospital, near where he grew up, Dobson said.

Dobson said he hopes to sponsor House versions of two bills introduced by U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Montgomery): the More Opportunities for Mothers to Succeed, or MOMS, Act, which aims to improve access to pre- and postnatal resources; and the IVF Protection Act, which would cut Medicaid funding to states that ban in vitro fertilization. Both bills died in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

“I am committed to doing everything I can to ensure that we have more funding, greater access to resources, and that mothers are aware of the resources available,” she said.

The numbers show that these suggestions are the wrong approach.

“I don’t think we should ban Medicaid funding because the people who need Medicaid the most are often not the ones who can afford IVF in the first place,” he said.

The numbers say he supports federal legislation that would offer Alabama the same deal it was rejected after the Affordable Care Act passed under former President Barack Obama: 100 percent federal funding of expanded Medicaid for the first three years. He criticized the Alabama Republican Legislature’s refusal to expand the program to people who don’t make enough money to qualify for subsidized private insurance plans.

“We are literally seeing hospitals being closed because of this decision,” he said. “And look, expanding Medicaid is not a permanent solution, but we know that if Medicaid were expanded, all the hospitals that were closed would likely still be open. We know that Medicaid expansion would provide health insurance opportunities for at least 300,000 more people in Alabama.”

Dobson on Monday continued efforts to tie Figures, a former Justice Department official, to the Biden administration’s legal challenge to Alabama’s law banning hormones, puberty blockers and other gender reassignment treatments for transgender youth.

“Alabama implemented this law to protect our minors,” he said. “So this shouldn’t be a problem, but my opponent and his Department of Justice are suing the state of Alabama to overturn our laws in 2022.”

Figures said the case was not something he worked on during his time at the Justice Department. And he said he believes Alabama “should be able to take the necessary steps in this area.” But he added that transgender healthcare and transgender athletes in sports distract from more important issues.

“My opponent wants to sit here and talk about things that have literally never happened in the history of the state of Alabama,” he said. “And this is just a divisive issue. It’s meant to incite fear. It’s meant to demonize a certain group of people.”

Dobson said he was cautiously optimistic about Tuesday.

“We are very hopeful for tomorrow, we are very excited for tomorrow,” he said. “We have a message that resonates with people across the district, regardless of whether they are Democrats or Republicans.”

The numbers said he believed he was the right choice.

“We have an opportunity to send someone to Washington who will focus and care and be concerned about the issues that matter here in your country, the issues that affect you every day,” he said.

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