Davis bid for governor to test Democrats’ appeal in a changing Texas

Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis’s (D) expected decision to run
for governor will give Democrats their best chance at winning the office in two
decades — an opportunity to show they can compete statewide in the longtime GOP
bastion.

{mosads}Davis faces an uphill climb in her race to succeed Gov. Rick
Perry (R).

A Davis win in 2014 would prove Democrats are alive in Texas and signal
a potentially seismic shift in the country’s electoral map.

But if Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) wins
comfortably, it could force Democrats to scale back their ambitions in the
country’s second-largest state.

Davis, whose filibuster of a Texas law to restrict abortion
rights made her a national sensation, is expected to announce she’ll run for
governor early next week.

“It’s a really hard race, it’s a long narrow path, but there
is a credible path for her,” says one Texas Democrat close to Davis, who asked
to speak on background because she hasn’t officially announced her decision.

“We’re all very hopeful. But it’s definitely tempered by the
reality of how hard it is.”

No Democrat has won a statewide race for any office in Texas
for more than a decade, and the last time a Democrat won a gubernatorial race
in Texas was 1990.

Mitt Romney carried the state by a 16-point margin — and
nearly 1.4 million votes — in 2012. Davis trailed Abbott by 48 to 40
percent in a mid-July survey from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling.

But Democrats hope the state’s shifting demographics can
help them be competitive there sooner rather than later. 

Texas’s Hispanic population has exploded, and the number of
African Americans has grown in recent years as well — more than 90 percent
of the state’s population growth since 2000 has been non-white.

Texas is now a majority-minority state, and its economic
boom has also attracted fewer conservative white voters from other parts of the
country.

“When you combine the population changes and the attitude
and sentiment of the Republican Party towards Hispanics, we’re quickly reaching
a tipping point. If not in 2014, by the end of the decade there will be
Democrats elected statewide again,” says Texas state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer
(D), a rising star in the state party.

Martinez Fischer says there are 3.4 million Hispanic
voting-aged citizens in the state who either haven’t registered to vote or are
unregistered. He points out that Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) margin of victory
in 2010 was slightly more than 600,000 votes.

“When we start engaging these folks with our infrastructure
and crystallize the difference between the parties, that’s going to do a lot,”
he said. “If you get one third of the people not voting pissed off, it’s game
over for Republicans.”

Republicans remain skeptical about Davis’s chances, however.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a race. No Democrat has won
more than 42 percent in the Rick Perry era. I could see her get to 46 percent
but not much further,” said Texas-based Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak.

Martinez Fischer disagreed, predicting that Davis would be a
tough candidate in the race should she run.

“The most appealing thing about Wendy is the fact that she’s
not afraid to stand up for her convictions, to take a principled stand,” he
said, talking up not only her most recent filibuster but an earlier one in
which she fought GOP cuts to education funding.

“She’s not a polarizing individual as an office holder. You
don’t win a swing district by being an ideologue. She has some appeal.”

Democrats have taken notice of the state’s population shift
— and are excited about Davis as a candidate.

A group run by a number of top-level former field staff for
President Obama’s campaigns is working on a large-scale voter registration and
field operation in the state called Battleground Texas.

The group raised $1 million in its first six months and has
so far trained 3,000 people to be voter registrants in the state.

The organization’s goals could be furthered by a Davis
candidacy. Battleground Texas has been pushing a ‘We Want Wendy’ campaign to
convince her to run, and a competitive statewide race would help bring
enthusiasm and money to the state and the organization.

In turn, some Democrats expect Battleground Texas to step in
as a major player in the Democratic field operation. Texas’s lax state
elections laws allow candidates to work closely with outside groups.

“This really is a long-term process. The goals are changing
day to day. If Wendy decides to run and we hope she does, she’d be an
incredible candidate, you have to step up the timeline and engage more
quickly,” said one Democrat familiar with the group’s efforts.

Davis will start off the race at a serious financial
disadvantage — Abbott has already raised more than $20 million for the race.
Texas is a prohibitively expensive state to campaign in, with some of the
largest and most costly media markets in the country.

She is likely to get serious national fundraising support,
however.

EMILY’s List, a group that backs pro-abortion rights
Democratic women, has already been helping her raise her national profile, and
a number of senators have stepped up to help her fundraise for the campaign at
stops in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and New York City.

Texas statewide candidates have no contribution limits,
making it much easier to raise huge sums of money.

A source close to Davis predicts she’ll need to raise $40
million for the race.  Even if her
campaign reaches that mark, Davis will still likely be outspent by Abbott and
his allies, the source said.

A big question is whether she can raise the necessary
national resources, while carving the centrist image she’ll need to compete in
the state.

Republicans say she’s already become closely identified with
abortion rights, an issue that doesn’t play well for Democrats in the state.
Davis has won tough elections in a GOP-leaning state Senate district, but a
statewide campaign is a very different animal.

Mackowiak says Davis “talks like a centrist and runs like a
centrist,” but that Republicans will have plenty fodder to paint her as a
liberal.

“The kind of candidates that can win statewide in Texas as
Democrats are going to be moderate pro-business candidates. Liberal donors
across the country don’t want to see that,” he says. “There’s a real tension
between the kind of candidate that could be successful in Texas and the type
they can raise money behind. Wendy is the candidate they can raise money for.”