Artur Davis - Post Congressional Career

Post Congressional Career

Following his loss in the gubernatorial primary, Davis described his votes in Congress against health care reform as "centrist" and said that the public option for health care would have "ratcheted private premiums even higher." He supported Alabama's voter ID laws. He also contributed money to the campaigns of two Republicans: former U.S. Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R-NM), who is running for the U.S. Senate and Phil Bryant (R-MS), who won a gubernatorial election in 2011.

For a time, Davis was doubtful he would run for public office again. He said, "Alabama is not friendly to independent candidacies” and suggested that running as a Republican would not be a viable option because the Alabama Republican Party had declined to embrace politicians who have switched parties such as former U.S. Congressman Parker Griffith who switched parties and lost the Republican primary in 2010.

In December 2011, he said that "for the first time in the 150-year history of the two-party alignment, there really is a monolithic conservative party and a just as exclusive liberal party. The ranks of Democratic moderates in both congressional chambers are small now, and their centrism is based more on a demeanor and a skeptical brow than a voting record." Artur further explained that he felt the Democratic Party was moving sharply toward the left, abandoning the South and the Midwest, in a "risky" strategy reminiscent of the 1970s.

In the Spring of 2012, he announced he would become a visiting fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics. In 2012, the conservative National Review online started publishing some of his political commentary. In February 2012, Davis told Politico that some Democrats wanted to argue that Obama's critics were motivated by racism, which Davis called "a huge mistake...a tactic that's likely to backfire" as it would lead "substantial number of Americans" to believe they were being called racists because they did not support Obama.

On May 29, 2012, Artur Davis confirmed that he was changing his voter registration from Alabama to Virginia and that he would run as a Republican were he to seek political office in the future.

In August 2012, he cited remarks by Vice President Joe Biden for "racial viciousness" for remarks Davis said were insulting to African Americans, and said, "Governor Romney is absolutely right as the Obama campaign is running a divisive campaign … pitting one set of Americans against another issue after issue". Davis also said, "It wouldn't be so bad if Barack Obama had not campaigned in such a different way." Davis spoke at the Republican National Convention in August 2012 to voice additional criticisms of Barack Obama.

Following Mitt Romney's loss in the 2012 presidential election, Davis said: ”The Republican conservative base seems perilously close to shrinking to white southern evangelicals, senior white males, and upper income Protestants.”