AUSTIN, TX, March 5, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Abortion rights activist and State Sen. Wendy Davis is officially the Democratic nominee for governor in the state of Texas.
Davis, who entered the national spotlight after a filibuster against a ban on most abortions after 20 weeks' gestation in May 2013, won nearly 80 percent of the vote in a primary she was expected to win with little difficulty.
Money was one of Davis' big advantages in the primary. According to The Dallas Morning News, she raised $2.85 million from January 22 to February 24. Nearly $230,000 of that came from Emily's List, a board member of Austin's Planned Parenthood chapter, and Planned Parenthood efforts on her behalf.
Davis faces a challenge in Republican Greg Abbott, who raised $2.5 million in the same time period, according to the paper. Davis has $11 million in her campaign warchest, while Abbott has $30 million. Twenty-seven percent of Davis' money came from out of state, while only two percent of Abbott's did.
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Abbott is more reliant on large donors – $50,000 was given by each of 15 donors, and 71 percent of his total came from donors giving $10,000 or more. Less than half of Davis' funding came from the same level of funding.
According to Texas Right to Life spokesperson Melissa Conway, money is not the only challenge Davis faces. “Greg Abbott set a Texas record for the number of votes cast in a primary [with] 1.2 million votes, while Davis only garnered 432,000 votes. She was weakened in 14 border counties with a large and primarily Hispanic population,” she told LifeSiteNews. Conway said Davis lost those 14 counties, “and that doesn't count the handful of counties where no Democrats even showed up to vote.”
Conway said the vote numbers were calculated by Texas Right to Life from polling data.
“Election results show that the majority of Texans only want fully committed, passionate Pro-Life leaders to represent them,” she said. Victories by pro-life candidates, including Abbott and “all of Texas' stalwart, pro-life Supreme Court Justices who were on the ballot,” as well as run-off primaries that pro-life candidates are involved in, show the strength of the pro-life movement in Texas,” she added.
Regarding Davis' chances at winning the general election, Conway said that while “we are not surprised by the nomination of Davis for the Democrat party, Texas has proven in the primary and will continue to prove in November that those actions do not bode well with Pro-Life Texans.”
The general election will be held on November 4. Abbott is expected to continue two decades of Republicans holding the governor's seat.