Mobile's Jerry Carl will face Democrat Clyde W. Jones Jr. after securing the Republican nomination in the race for Alabama's First Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after Tuesday's special primary election.

In a low-turnout event, Carl received 74.7% of the 31,225 total votes cast, securely beating three opponents vying for the position under new, but old, maps used in this re-do election.

Tuesday's primary is the most recent installment in a political saga that traces back to the 2020 Census, which determined Alabama's Black population made up 26.5% of the state, but Alabama’s congressional redistricting plan, a task given to elected officials from the federal to municipal level, only included one district — of seven — that was majority Black. A group of individuals and organizations sued the state for diluting Black voting power through racial gerrymandering, which had been deemed illegal by the National Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This lawsuit, Allen v. Milligan, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court instructed Alabama to redraw the maps. Those maps were also challenged and found to be racially gerrymandered, and a federal court ordered a third, independently drawn map. This map included two Black opportunity districts — districts where Black people could reasonably have a say in who gets elected — and was used in the 2024 election.

Voters elected two Black members to Congress, including Mobile’s Shomari Figures in District 2. With Mobile no longer part of District 1, which encompasses all of Baldwin County in both versions of the U.S. House of Representatives districts map, current U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, from Coffee County, was elected to District 1, a seat previously held by Carl.

Milligan impacted redistricting lawsuits across the country, including Louisiana gaining another majority Black voting district. That district was taken away in the 2026 U.S. Supreme Court decision on Louisiana v. Callais in a ruling opponents say weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and made it harder to challenge maps on racial discrimination. After Callais, Alabama, Tennessee and other state legislatures passed mid-decade redistricting legislation. Groups sued to block the maps. After going through the court system, it was ruled Alabama could go back to the map found to be racially gerrymandered in Allen v. Milligan that the Callais ruling defined instead as legal political gerrymandering, which is a way of drawing district boundaries that the Supreme Court has repeatedly said is legal and is as nearly as old in the country as our democracy itself.

Because the ballots had already been set for the May 19 primary before this timeline played out, the race for District 1 was deemed moot, and Gov. Kay Ivey called for a new special primary for affected Districts 1, 2, 6 and 7.

The Democratic nominee, Jones, did not face opposition in the new primary, and the state's rules for the special primary said there would be no runoff, though that would have not been necessary in District 1 as Carl earned 74.7% of the vote, according to unofficial totals.

Following Carl was Fairhope's Austin Sidwell, who got 17.63% of the vote, or 5,505 votes, then John Mills with 5.81%, or 1,815 votes, and Gulf Shores' Lucas Burger with 1.86%, or 580 votes.

That order remained when looking just at Baldwin County's votes, though local voters supported Sidwell at a higher rate of 25.09%, or 3,206 votes.

Across the four districts, voter turnout for five races — four Republican and one Democrat — was 5.24%. Baldwin County's turnout was 6.03%.

A total of 31,225 votes were cast in the District 1 race, including 12,779 in Baldwin and 15,490 in Mobile.

In May, there were 81,205 Republican votes cast for the moot race across the district.

In 2022, the last midterm primaries, there were 35,778 Republican ballots cast in Baldwin County.

Across the other special primaries, District 91 state Rep. Rhett Marques won the Republican nomination for District 2. He will face incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, who did not face opposition in the primary, in the November general election.Current District 6 U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer won the nomination in his bid to retain the seat and will face Democrat Maurice Mercer in November, and Ammie Akin won the Republican nomination for District 7 where she will face incumbent Democrat Rep. Terri Sewell. Sewell has represented the district since 2011.