For some reason it hadn’t occurred to me that this was likely to happen on Monday. And here we are.
Sen. Wendy Davis
Former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis is running for Congress.
Early Monday morning, Davis announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in Central Texas’ 21st District. She is challenging U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a freshman Republican from Austin.
She made her intentions known in a biographical video, narrated in part with archival footage from her late father, Jerry Russell.
“I’m running for Congress because people’s voices are still being silenced,” she said. “I’m running for our children and grandchildren, so they can live and love and fight for change themselves.”
The potential Davis-Roy matchup is likely to be among the most polarizing races the state has seen in recent years. Davis is a fierce national advocate for abortion rights, while Roy has built his reputation in his first six months in Congress as a conservative firebrand.
Davis lives in Austin but spent much of her adult life in Fort Worth, where she served on the City Council and in the state Senate. In 2013, Davis became a national figure when she filibustered an omnibus anti-abortion bill. Later that fall, she announced her campaign for Texas governor. Despite strong fundraising, she lost to Republican Greg Abbott by over 20 percentage points.
“Even in losing, we helped shape the future,” she said in the video.
[…]
Davis isn’t alone in seeking to challenge Roy. Llano County Democratic Chairwoman Jennie Lou Leeder and educator Bruce Boville are among Democratic candidates who have filed Federal Election Commission finance reports. But there is little doubt that Davis will have the backing of important state and national Democrats. On Tuesday, nearly every member of House Democratic leadership and nine members of the Texas delegation will host a reception in Washington, D.C. for the newly announced candidate.
Inside Elections, a campaign analyst group, currently rates this race “Likely Republican.”
See here for the previous update. I mean, if there’s going to be a big fundraiser for your Congressional campaign on Tuesday, you probably want to make it clear some time before Tuesday that you are, in fact, running for Congress. That fundraiser, and the likely support Davis will get from the Dem establishment is key, because as noted before, no one in CD21 had made any impression yet. (Which, again, is likely because a lot of people were waiting on Wendy, but still.) I saw that Bruce Boville had a finance report, but given that he had raised all of $2K, I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. I expect we’ll see a big number for Davis in the Q3 report.
Yes, I know, standard disclaimers about money not being everything apply here. This campaign, like all of the successful and nearly-successful ones from 2018, will need to lean on a lot of GOTV, and a lot of voter registration, and those things cost money. So yeah, rake it in, Wendy.
One more thing: If your entire reaction is “she got clobbered in 2014 so obviously she can’t win” or some such, that’s a bad take. You may not have noticed, but 2014 was a rotten year for Democrats nationally. At least at this time, that does not appear to be the case for 2020. Individual candidates and campaigns do matter, but so does the national climate. That crushed Dems in 2014, and elevated them in 2018. If 2020 is more like the latter, Davis will have a shot. CD21 is still a Republican district and so she’s still an underdog, but in a good Dem year she will have a chance to win. If 2020 is more like 2014, well, that’s just too gruesome to contemplate. My point is that this is a different year and a different atmosphere, and what happened in 2014 is not destiny. The Chron has more.
“I’m running for our children and grandchildren, so they can live and love and fight for change themselves.”*
*Those children lucky enough not to be aborted. That group gets to live, love and fight. Tough luck for the rest, y’all.
Another ConservaDem who, like Royce, in this cycle, cannot or will not, use the phrases of “single payer” or “Medicare for All.”
And, has she repented of being a gun nut and other things?
https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/07/wendy-davis-is-back-why.html