Davis launches campaign for seat of Rep. Roy
Ex-candidate for governor plans to run on immigrant, reproductive rights
Wendy Davis, the former Texas state senator who gained a national following after her 13-hour filibuster of an anti-abortion measure, will make another run at higher office — this time challenging U.S. Rep. Chip Roy to represent the San Antonio-area District 21.
In an announcement video released Monday, Davis, 56, presented herself as a candidate who will speak up for Texans who don’t feel represented by current leadership on issues such as voting rights, reproductive rights and the rights of immigrants.
“I’ve learned that I’m at my best when I’m fighting for people,” Davis said, continuing with a nod to her unsuccessful 2014 gubernatorial campaign: “And even in losing, we help shape the future because it isn’t personal achievements or failures that create change, it’s working together to fight for what matters. Every Texan needs to know that the future belongs to all of us and we all can play a role in shaping it.”
Davis inspired a rare flash of Democratic optimism in Texas in 2014, raising nearly $40 million in her race against then-Attorney General Greg Abbott. But her campaign fizzled, and she lost by 20 percentage points.
Republicans on Monday were quick to bash her candidacy by calling attention to that margin.
“Texans resoundingly rejected Davis and her socialist agenda five years ago, and will do so again in 2020,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Bob Salera.
Now Davis hopes to reclaim her role as a pioneer in her race against Roy, who won his last election by 2.6 percentage points in a district long considered a GOP stronghold, stretching from San Antonio to Austin and including a wide swath of conservative Hill Country.
Adding to her name recognition will be film, “Let Her Speak,” retelling Davis’ 2013 filibuster, starring Sandra Bullock. Davis told Texas Monthly magazine in March that the film is due
to be released in 2020.
Davis’ popularity and proven fundraising ability will make for a “flagship race” against Roy, a freshman congressman known for his hard-line conservative politics, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.
He said the 2014 results aren’t necessarily indicative of how she’ll do now, considering that “2014 did not end well for her or the Democrats, but that was the start of when we thought Texas could be a competitive state.”
Democrats hope changing demographics in the district will give Davis the boost she needs, after watching Beto O’Rourke come within a few percentage points of winning the party’s first statewide election since 1994.
House Democrats have targeted the district as one of six in Texas they think they can take from Republicans in 2020 in part because of thin margins in the last election.
The population of Congressional District 21 grew by about 16 percent between 2010 to 2017, and its nonwhite population has increased, Census data shows.
Roy showed no sign of concern on Monday.
“Wendy Davis’ radical & extreme views will no doubt excite the likes of Nancy Pelosi & other DC liberals,” he tweeted. “I will continue fighting for the hardworking families of #Tx21 & the commonsense values that make Texas everything Washington is not.”
Though Davis made plenty of nods to her past as a champion for abortion rights in her video Monday, the campaign also made clear it’s looking to expand her image as a fighter across a variety of fronts, aware that opponents will likely revive old attacks, including the “Abortion Barbie” label of years past.
In the video, Davis recounts how she overcame a difficult childhood in poverty being raised by a single mother after her parents split, a young adulthood marked by a teenage pregnancy and an early divorce that left her, too, as a single mother to her daughter Amber for some time.
She worked her way up from community college to Texas Christian University and eventually was accepted to Harvard Law School. She later remarried and had a second daughter, Dru, but the couple divorced after she graduated.
The story is one she’s told many times. It’s also one that caused trouble for the campaign in 2014 when news outlets reported on certain inaccuracies — such as her age when she first divorced and how she paid for law school — in the details of her retellings that was prime bait for her opponents on the right.
Davis in the video Monday appeared to be shifting the focus from her background to her ability to bring people together and lead them in fighting for a common cause.
“All of those things brought me here,” Davis said in the video, which was spliced with clips from her filibuster speech and public appearances since. “But is life really about our
“Republicans were able to define Wendy Davis early, and much earlier than she was able to define herself.” Brandon Rottinghaus, University of Houston political science professor
circumstances and what we make of them or is it about the people we touch along the way and the courage we gain from each other?”
Still, she’ll have to overcome some of the stumbles of her earlier campaign, including a lack of clarity in her messaging after Republicans painted her as a single-issue candidate for her views on abortion, Rottinghaus said.
“Republicans were able to define Wendy Davis early, and much earlier than she was able to define herself,” he said. “That first opinion most people had of her stuck and was hard to dislodge, even with $30 million-plus that she raised.”
Davis got her start in politics as a Fort Worth City Council member, where she served for nine years,
and went on to win a Texas Senate seat in a 2008 upset. She held onto the seat in 2012 after prevailing over GOP redistricting efforts to edge out Democrats.
Davis has stayed active in politics since her failed bid for governor. In 2016, she founded the nonprofit Deeds Not Words, which promotes the political engagement of young women .
Monday’s announcement finally put to rest snowballing speculation over the last month over her plans. Last month, businessman and philanthropist Marc Winkelman set off a flurry on social media when he said at a Texas Observer gala that Davis was running.
Then, Thursday, the Texas Tribune reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House leaders will throw an event Tuesday in Washington, D.C., “in support of her campaign for Texas CD21” with a link to donate.
Three other candidates running against Roy have raised modest amounts of cash over the past few months — Democrats Jennie Lou Leeder and Bruce Boville and Independent Michael Felts — but none came close to Roy’s $416,000 showing for April through June, according to campaign finance records.