On election night, Jerry Carl and his supporters gathered at the Fort Whiting Reception Hall in Mobile, hoping the results would return him to his former District 1 seat.

Carl’s watch party featured an entourage of Baldwin County and local officials, including District 4 county commissioner John “Tater” Harris, outgoing state Rep. Matt Simpson, Spanish Fort Mayor Brad Bass and former Baldwin County Sheriff Huey Mack.

About 30 minutes before the polls closed, Carl said he and his team felt encouraged heading into election night.

“We’ve been watching numbers all day, actual vote counts, and the overall numbers of people that are voting,” Carl said. “Our precincts, our Republican precincts, are very high. I think we’re going to be very, very surprised tonight. Some of the numbers that we actually see overall, Republican and Democrat turnout. That’s the American way. It just gets me excited when we get everybody involved in these races, so I think we’re gonna do fine. We’ll know here in just a short while, but we’re excited.”

Meanwhile, just a few miles down the road, Carl’s opponent, Democratic nominee Clyde Jones, held his own watch party at Fairhope Brewing in Mobile, featuring representatives for statewide and local races along with groups such as Indivisible.

As the results started to come in, Jones said he felt energized. Despite early results favoring Carl, Jones said he was still optimistic.

“We have such small numbers right now, but once we see more numbers coming in, I think we are,” Jones said. “We see it all over the country, so you know, Alabama’s no different. People don’t look at Alabama that way, but we can change if we get out and vote, and I think many people did get out and use their vote as their voice today, so we’ll see.”

Carl, who represented District 1 from 2021 to 2025, sought to regain his former seat following a shakeup across statewide politics. Rep. Barry Moore, who currently represents the district, opted to run for the U.S. Senate after current Sen. Tommy Tuberville decided to run for governor.

The district was redrawn for the 2024 election after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled the state legislature's congressional map was racially gerrymandered. That ruling was challenged, and the court earlier this year ruled the map was only politically gerrymandered, which is not constitutionally illegal. So, the map was reverted back to a 2022 drawing, which impacted what district Mobile County is in but kept Baldwin County entirely in District 1 the whole time.

Also impacted by the redrawing was District 2, where Mobile's Shomari Figures outlasted Rhett Marques, a Republican state legislator, to keep his federal seat in the biggest impact seen from a "blue tsunami" that washed over much of the rest of the country and gave Democrats control of both chambers of Congress.

With Baldwin County included in District 1, Carl said some of the projects he will focus on include working to protect the ancient cypress forest off the coast, overseeing the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway Project connecting Mobile and Baldwin counties, and addressing infrastructure issues.

“I’d love to see us take the Beach Expressway all the way to I-65,” Carl said. “I mean, there are several projects over there that I’d like to focus on. Baldwin County is a huge player in our district, so I don’t want to forget any of them. Covington, Escambia County also.”

While he didn't flip the seat like he hoped, Jones said he will work to address affordability and protect tourism and farmers located within the more rural parts of the county.

“It goes back to affordability, right? People can’t afford to buy groceries. They can’t afford to go on vacation, right? It’s a big part of it, and then we have our agriculture, right? So making sure we protect our farmers. We still have a lot of rural area in Baldwin County and Covington County, Escambia County as well, so making sure we’re protecting our farmers, protecting their business, imports, exports, you know. Again, some relief into what they’re facing right now," he said.

The crowd at Jones' watch party reacted enthusiastically as results came in for Democrats across the country, including James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Texas’ Senate seat, and Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor. Conversely, a political ad for Tommy Tuberville, the Republican nominee for Alabama governor, was met with a loud chorus of boos as it played on the projector.

By 10:15 p.m., however, the Associated Press called the race in favor of Carl, who had 54.5% of the vote compared to Jones, who had 45.5% of the vote, with 64% of votes counted.

In his victory speech, Carl said it had been “a roller coaster of a campaign, and to finish out where we’re at is so exciting.”

“We’re going to do some new things, some challenging things,” Carl said. “Thank y’all. Thank you for voting for me, thank you for believing in me, thank you for your investments in me, and I promise you, District 1, it will pay off.”