Texas Senator Wendy Davis and Attorney General Greg Abbott weren’t pulling rabbits out of hats Tuesday night with their respective primary wins in the race to replace Governor Rick Perry.
As Fox News Politics reports, the two candidates “cruised” to their wins, easily brushing off political unknowns to do what we’ve all expected to happen for months now.
Since the pair announced their intentions to run for the governor’s office, it’s been Davis vs. Abbott in the local political press – a no holds barred beatdown between the old guard who want to keep the Perry train running after 14 years and Democrats looking for an Ann Richards style revival. Davis’ and Abbott’s opponents got little to no play — have you heard of Lisa Fritsch, Miriam Martinez, Larry Kilgore or Reynaldo Madrigal? I didn’t use a name generator to pump out those unknowns — they’re victims of powerhouse press play Davis and Abbott have gotten as the presumptive (now definite) nominees for their parties.
But it’s time to stop looking backwards. Davis and Abbott certainly aren’t — the candidates have been pushing their agendas without taking a break. As Wayne Slater discusses in his Dallas Morning News column, the pair barely took time to rest on their laurels before revving up the engines and redefining their stump speeches to focus on minority issues.
Davis, who emerged to a kind of national folk stardom with her filibuster last year against abortion restrictions, holds obvious appeal for women (you know, being one) and the Democratic ticket leans in favor of social issues — enticing minority voters and the poor.
Abbott, however, has been less overt with his appeal to the same demographics. It wasn’t entirely helpful to Abbott’s broad-base appeal to campaign with Ted Nugent, as Slater points out. In fact that scandal allowed Davis to boost her fundraising, although her cash on hand still pales in comparison to her GOP opponent’s coffers.
Now Abbott is trying to reach across the aisle, put down the Nugent negativity, and appeal to Hispanic voters and women. This, of course, is after years of GOP rhetoric blasting immigration security issues and flubbing abortion rights. Abbott, though, really only needs to maintain his base (“white men, suburban women, and enough Hispanic support” as Slater says) to win, while Davis needs to scoop up a heavy amount of women and minority votes to have a real shot at
Perry’s position.
To do that, Davis might have to moderate her positions to siphon off undecideds and wavering Abbott voters. Davis already started roughing around the edges with her support of a limited late-term abortion ban that took her from the far left closer to the middle of the pond.
We could have our first female governor in over 20 years, or we could have a governor that appeals to GOP faithfuls.
The closer we come to November, the messier the fight.
