Wendy Davis Tag

She's a football flip-flopper, professing love for the Cowboys only when convenient, via Houston Chronicle:

The Abbott camp highlighted this KTCK-AM radio interview in which Davis said she grew up cheering for the Cowboys and will be doing so again this year: It contrasted that statement with Vogue interview in which Davis’ daughter described her as a Patriots fan and a shot of a “Go Pats!” comment on Facebook by Davis.

Elsewhere Davis actually continues to struggle:

Earlier this month, Wendy Davis fell into the gutter with a new ad accusing current Texas Attorney General and fellow gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott of being soft on rape. Politicos on both sides of the aisle were put off by the ad, and many consultants believe that she may have actually damaged her image with undecided voters. Apparently her campaign staff realized this was a likely result of an ad that was basically an exploitative non sequitur, because this week Davis began touting her plan to end the statute of limitations on criminal sexual assault cases. Via the Dallas Morning News:

In recent weeks, she’s toured the state touting bills she pushed in the Texas Legislature that led to rape kits being tested so victims could receive justice. Last week in Dallas, she stood with Lavinia Masters and other rape survivors. According to Davis, Masters didn’t get justice because time ran out on officials seeking to close her case. “Eliminating the statute of limitations for rape will help to right that wrong by making sure that survivors like Lavinia will never again will have to forgo justice just because someone stood back and let the clock run out on their case,” Davis said. The Davis campaign pointed to several Texas rape case where the criminals got away with the crime because of the statute of limitations.

Right now in Texas, there is a ten year statute of limitations on the prosecution of felony sexual assault cases. There is no statute of limitations on the prosecution of sexual assault on a child, or in cases where DNA is recovered but no match can be found. What Davis wants to do is put felony sexual assault on the same level as crimes like murder, manslaughter, and human trafficking, the prosecution of which is not limited by statute.

Wendy Davis's run for governor against Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is one of the most high profile top-ticket races in the country. The political class (if not yet voters at large) is keeping a close eye on the back-and-forth battle for control of the narrative, and the latest ad from the Wendy Davis campaign has ignited a firestorm of controversy. The ad, titled "A Texas Story," tells the story of a woman from Seguin, Texas who was raped in her home by a door-to-door Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman. The woman's attempt to sue Kirby for damages went all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, which eventually held that the victim did have a right to sue the corporation for the actions of the salesman. Then-Justice Greg Abbott, however, dissented. He said that the Kirby corporation had "no duty" to the victim because the salesman in question was hired by a distributor. (Two other justices agreed with him.) The controversy surrounding this ad obviously doesn't center on the issue of which Justices booked their 1L Torts exam; instead, it centers on the issue that has defined these campaigns from the beginning--gender. Also, emotions (because of course) and the shock of seeing a political ad about a brutal rape. (Some may say the shock of seeing a political ad that exploits rape to gain points with voters, but who's counting?)

It's been a little while since we reported on Wendy Davis, and how her campaign was not going well:

• Wendy Davis Campaign Mgr abandons ship as poll shows 12-pt Abbott lead
• Texas women running away from Wendy Davis

I had not expected national Dems to keep pouring money into the race, but apparently the small donors around the country still are forking over small donations, perhaps on the misperception that Davis has a strong chance. The Austin American-Statesman reports that Davis is matching Greg Abbott in current fundraising , but trails badly in the polls and only has 1/3 the cash on hand:

Gubernatorial rivals Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott have each raised just over $11 million since late February, but the Republican attorney general retains a huge $36 million to $13 million cash advantage over the Democratic senator from Fort Worth less than four months before the election. The fundraising reports, due with the Texas Ethics Commission by midnight Tuesday, gave each of the campaigns something to crow about. For Abbott, who raised $11.1 million between Feb. 23 and June 30, it is that his $36 million campaign funds constitutes, the campaign said, “the highest cash on hand amount ever reported by a Texas candidate.” They also touted the fact that, “Greg Abbott’s fund raising is coming from Texas: 95 percent of Abbott’s contributions came from within the state.” For the underdog Davis, the numbers also represented good news. Despite not budging in the polls so far — Abbott maintains a double-digit advantage — she continues to draw from a very large fundraising base, with many times as many givers as Abbott, which the Davis campaign likes to portray as the domain of fat-cat “insiders” who see Abbott as an investment more than a cause. The Fort Worth senator’s campaign said that in this last reporting period, Davis had had raised $11.2 million from more than 72,000 contributors; that 75 percent of the contributions were for less than $50, and the average contribution was 105.25.

Davis does have some well-heeled backers, though, as The Dallas Morning News reports, Wendy Davis draws from trial lawyers, labor and Hollywood to boost her campaign:

It's time for Republicans to step up their ground game. In 2010, nobody doubted that the key to victory was the enormous amount of grassroots support given to candidates like Ted Cruz, who came from behind to whollop well-funded incumbents in important statewide races. In 2012, enthusiasm waned in the wake of the Romney nomination, and may conservatives doubted how successful Republicans would be, given the apparent weakness of the top-ticket candidate. In 2014, enthusiasm for a true, election-winning ground game has all but waned. Not because of any one candidate in particular, but because of the realization that using old tactics on the same audience is no longer a winning strategy. In Texas, we're seeing a groundswell of support for groups like Battleground Texas, who are quickly filling their ranks with OFA and Obama campaign veterans--and these people know what they're doing. They're playing the long game, and they're not just focusing on devoted liberals like the people we saw supporting Wendy Davis during last year's abortion rights spectacle.

The latest poll from the University of Texas/Texas Tribune shows that Wendy Davis' 15 minutes of fame may be fading. After closing the gap to mid-single digits behind Greg Abbott in prior polling, Davis is back down to 11 points behind:

In the governor’s race, Abbott would beat Davis 47 percent to 36 percent in a general election held today, with 17 percent of registered voters saying they have not made up their minds about which candidate to support, according to the poll. “We’ve been talking since the beginning of this race about whether anything would be different, and we’re not seeing anything that’s different,” said Jim Henson, co-director of the poll and head of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “There was some talk about how Davis had done better in our last poll, and that was partially an artifact of her rise in the fall, and we’re seeing something of a reassertion of the normal pattern.” In the October survey, Davis’ announcement and sudden political celebrity cut the Republican's lead over her to 6 percentage points. Now, the distance between the two has widened a bit. “The story of the last four months is, Davis loses a couple points, Abbott gains a couple of points,” said Daron Shaw, co-director of the poll and a professor of government at UT-Austin. “He had a pretty good couple of months. She had a pretty bad couple of months, all without many people paying attention.”

The details are even more disheartening for Davis, as her unfavorables have grown from 31 to 35%, with a whopping 28% very unfavorable.  By contrast, Abbott's unfavorables are at 25% with only 16% very unfavorable: