Matthews on the AL-2 Congressional Race

Next Tuesday will see just over half of Alabamians go to the polls for a special primary election to choose their Party’s nominees for Congress in Districts 1, 2, 6 and 7.

The District 2 Republican race will determine who faces off against incumbent Democrat Shomari Figures in the November 3 general election.

ALPolitics.com spoke with David Matthews, one of the six candidates vying for the nomination on Thursday.

We began by asking him about this unusual race, and why he chose to join it.

“You know, I served in both Trump administrations, approximately five years and two months,” Matthews said. “To some that may not sound like a lot of time, but when you're in this kind of capacity, it felt like 30 years for me. While I was up in D.C., I got exposed to a lot of very granular details about how our executive branch operates, what we do right, what we do wrong, where we waste money, and how we need to improve. I also worked a lot with elected officials in the House and the Senate and their staff.

“If you combine both Trump administrations, I personally interviewed over 500 different people, and through all of this experience, I've learned a lot. I've learned how I compare to other people who pursue politics. I've learned what people in the House and the Senate, some who've been serving for decades, I know what they know and I know what they don't know. I know what they're paying attention to and I know what they're not aware of.

“When the qualification period opened back up on May 20th, and I was encouraged to jump in this race, I knew that it was my duty as a public servant to join the race because I know how I compare to other people who pursue politics. I know the reasons why I got into the world of public service, and I know the quality of work I can do as a congressman.

“I would not be able to look at myself in the mirror had I not at least tried. And so that's I guess that's the shortest I can give on why I joined this race.”

Matthews has been on the campaign trail for weeks, and his campaign has had very strong social media and video presences. We asked him to tell us just what sets his campaign apart from the other candidates.

Matthews answered, “I would say what sets our campaign apart from everyone else is that ours is very human and personal. I've done campaigning before. I helped the President get elected in 2016. I worked up in Pennsylvania (for President Trump), and I've watched how other people typically campaign. The way that they do it is they dump money to campaign managers and political consultants, and then they go subcontract, and it's a lot of money that's spent creating kind of a brand or a promotion of a candidate that's very inhuman.

“When I joined this race, I prayed for guidance, and really the only guidance I believe I received was just to be myself. So, what we've been doing on social media is really me just being myself.

“Offline, we've done a lot of different kinds of campaigning, with our mailers being one of them. Usually when a candidate is mailing out these promotional items to voters — you know, for instance, my main opponent in Enterprise, he paid a company in Phoenix, Arizona, to print off this one-page thing that gets blasted to all voters.

“When we've sent out mailers, every envelope is handwritten. They all have real stamps, and inside, I wrote a letter to every single one of them, and I wrote the name of the person receiving the letter. I hand sign, and I put a Bible verse on all of them. And some people, I wrote quite some information on there. There's gonna be some people getting some interesting letters.

“We've run a campaign that's very personal and honest and true to who I am. That's just being a real person, I guess.”

We then told Matthew’s this piece would come out Friday morning, and we asked him what he wanted the people of District 2 to know about him, to convince them to vote for him as opposed to one of his opponents.

“So, I would argue — and honestly, I have made this challenge throughout the entire campaign, and no one's been able to argue it to be untrue — I firmly believe this to be a fact: the people of Alabama have never had the opportunity to vote for someone that has experience like I do. I have worked for a President in two different terms at a leadership level. I have worked inside of the executive branch, which is pretty much a black box to a lot of our elected officials. It's hard for them to see into it I have learned thousands of lessons. I've learned about thousands of problems that need to be solved. These are things that most people never get exposed to.

“And so, what I would ask of the voter is: elect a person for their experience, elect a person based on how competent of an individual you think they are.

“A lot of the candidates I'm running up against say that they are fighters. They're going to go to D.C. and fight. They frankly have no idea what's waiting for them up in D.C. I do, and I want to go up there, and I want to fight for not just the people in District Two, not just the people in Alabama, but the entire United States. Because these congressional seats, the implications of those decisions made up there on the Hill, they reach that far,” Matthews said.

We then asked a question with a one-word answer: can he beat Shomari Figures in November?

“Absolutely,” he said.

ALPolitics.com then asked Matthews for any final thoughts he’d like to add.

“I'd say if people want to do more research on their candidates, on the six different candidates that are running in this race, I made it very easy for everyone,” he answered. “Now, not everyone has a Facebook, but if you're able to go on Facebook, I'm only following five people. Those are the five people I'm running against. So, if someone wants to really do research on a candidate or all the candidates, they can go to my Facebook, look at everybody's online content. I have dozens of speeches I've done that are online, and I believe after an educated researching process, they'll make the right choice.”

For more information on David Wallace, visit his campaign website or follow him on Facebook or YouTube.