Former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis addressing the 2012 Republican National Convention
On Tuesday, Artur Davis' comeback attempt fizzled out. Davis, a former Democratic congressman who joined the GOP soon after Team Blue overwhelmingly rejected him in the 2010 gubernatorial primary, placed a distant second in Tuesday's contest to become mayor of Montgomery, Alabama. Republican incumbent Todd strange
outpaced Davis 57-27, with three other candidates taking the rest; because Strange took more than 50 percent of the vote, he does not need to face a runoff.
Davis was once a Democratic rising star, and he served as both an Obama co-chair and a major DCCC official during the 2008 cycle. But while Davis was already more conservative than his safely blue Birmingham-area House seat, he lurched far to the right in preparation for his 2010 gubernatorial campaign. Davis calculated that he could win the general election as a conservative Democrat, but he especially angered Alabama's Democratic base when he voted against Obamacare. Davis overwhelmingly lost the primary and joined the GOP not long after leaving Congress. Davis was a prominent Mitt Romney supporter and he flirted with various runs in his new home in Northern Virginia.
But only months after ruling out a bid for Virginia's 10th Congressional District in 2014, Davis moved back to Montgomery, a city he had grown up in but never represented in the House. Davis made it clear he wanted to run for mayor and he hoped that Strange would retire (Davis may also have thought that his early campaign would entice Strange to call it quits). But Strange announced in January that he would seek another term, and Davis decided to push on.
But despite his huge loss, we may not have seen the last of Artur Davis. In his concession speech, Davis declared that he "still intend[s] to be the next mayor of Montgomery, Alabama," and that "[i]t may be four years later than I wanted it to be." Of course, who knows where Davis will be living in 2019, or what party he'll belong to?
