Davis, a Harvard-educated lawyer in his 40s like Obama, ended months of speculation with his announcement, attended by a crowd of at least 100 people, made up largely of whites. That voting bloc will be crucial for Davis to win in 2010.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, an early supporter of Barack Obama with uncanny similarities to the new president, announced his Democratic candidacy for governor Friday in a bid to become the first Black to win Alabama’s top office.
Davis, a Harvard-educated lawyer in his 40s like Obama, ended months of speculation with his announcement, attended by a crowd of at least 100 people, made up largely of whites. That voting bloc will be crucial for Davis to win in 2010.
“I will not promise you this path will be easy,” said Davis, 41, who chaired Obama’s campaign in Alabama.
“Yes, this will be hard, but if we find our way, we can build a state like we have never known, not at some distant point called one day, but right now in our season,” he said.
Davis has more than $1.1 million in his congressional campaign account that he can use for his gubernatorial bid.
He will face a Democratic field that’s likely to include Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom Jr., who served a partial term as governor during the early 1990s, and possibly Ron Sparks, Alabama’s agriculture commissioner. Both are white.
Like the new president, Davis overcame long odds to make it in politics. He was raised in Montgomery by a single mother and grandmother yet went on to graduate from Harvard University’s law school where he met Obama.
A skilled orator, Davis upset a Black incumbent to win Alabama’s 7th Congressional District. He has either won easily or had no opposition in re-elections to the mostly Black district, which extends from Birmingham to rural west Alabama. He has styled himself as a moderate pragmatist who looks out for the needy in his district but also has business interests in mind.
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