State Representative Anthony Daniels (D-Huntsville) has released his first campaign ad in his bid to become the new Congressman representing Alabama’s Second Congressional District. Daniels represents Huntsville in the Alabama House of Representatives — but the House Minority Leader has deep roots in the rich soil of the Black Belt — and his first campaign video advertisement emphasized those Bullock County roots.
“My journey began right here in Midway,” Daniels says in a farm field. “Right here in Bullock County. I was out in the fields picking peas with my grandparents back when I could barely walk. I am literally one generation away from being born on the plantation. I remember running up to the grocery store where my grandmother would barter pigs in exchange for groceries.”
Daniels excelled in youth and high school sports until his dreams of athletic stardom were cut short when he tore his ACL. Daniels applied himself academically where he pursued a degree in education at Alabama A&M University and he then worked for the National Education Association.
Daniels says he was, “In the room fighting to make people’s lives better.”
“The college cost reduction act in 2007 actually included pieces that I wrote. That’s when I realized that it was my time to start planting seeds for others to succeed. Then I began my career teaching at a public magnet school and on an Indian reservation,” Daniels said.
In 2014 Daniels was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives and then elected House Minority Leader. He is both the first African-American and the youngest person to ever hold that position. Daniels said that that leadership role has allowed him to steer hundreds of millions of dollars to Alabama’s Second Congressional District.
Daniels also emphasized legislation he introduced this year that passed and became law that makes overtime pay tax free for state income taxes for Alabama’s working people.
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“I know what it takes to make a difference,” Daniels concluded. “I have always represented you. I have always been fighting for you. I have worked across the aisle to lower drug costs for seniors. I am leading the fight to expand Medicaid. It is time we had one of us working for us in Congress.”
There is no incumbent in this race because the court appointed special master redrew the Second District so the current incumbent, Republican Congressman Barry Moore of Enterprise, and his native Coffee County are now in the First District; where he is running against incumbent Republican Congressman Jerry Carl of Mobile. The new Second Congressional District includes the eastern half of the Black Belt, all of Montgomery County, the northern half of the Wiregrass, and parts of southwest Alabama including most of the City of Mobile.
The winners of the two primaries will then face each other in the November 5 general election.
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