I don't like giving too much weight to special elections because turn out is typically much lower. Participation fell from about 14,700 voters in 2022 to 6000. I do think it's worth nothing that Lands lost her bid for that seat in Nov 2022 by about 7 points. She won the special election by about 25 points.

According to the polling I've seen, Trump supporters (who obviously skew heavily Republican) are supposed to be super-excited to vote this year. Strange that this block wouldn't come out and support the GOP candidate
#9 | POSTED BY TONYROMA

I didn't know anything about these two candidates ahead of hearing Lands won. I looked them up and this race doesn't sound much like what we are used to with current national politics. Lands is a former republican who previously worked as campaign manager for Mike Ball who held the seat from 2002 until 2022. Powell does not seem to one of the MAGATS. He ran on actual issues driven campaign. Both candidates had a lot of overlap on many issues.

One thing to note about this district. This is where US Space Force HQ was slated to relocate to until that move was blocked by the White House in 2023. I don't know the reasons behind that decision but there was a lot of speculation that Alabama's laws that deny fundamental freedoms to women may have played a role.