Texas hasn't had a Democrat elected governor since Ann Richards won the office more than 20 years ago (in 1991), and most political pundits have predicted that will continue to be true once the votes are counted in November of this year. Even though Texas Democrats finally have a candidate (State Sen. Wendy Davis) that excites them, she has been trailing her Republican opponent in the polls.
But the polls show something else also -- that Sen. Davis has been slowly but surely chipping away at the lead of Attorney General Greg Abbott in the governor's race. When it became pretty apparent last November that the candidates would be Davis for the Democrats and Abbott for the Republicans, Public Policy Polling did a survey in Texas to see how the race stacked up -- and at that time Abbott seemed like a sure winner. He led Davis by 15 points in that poll (50% to 35%).
In February, just a couple of weeks before the party primaries, another poll was done -- this time a University of Texas / Texas Tribune Poll. That poll showed Abbott with a significant double-digit lead, but that lead had shrunk from 15 points down to 11 points (47% to 36%). Was Wendy cutting into Abbott's lead, or was it just a difference in poll methodology?
Now a third Texas poll has been released (done right after the party primaries), and it seems to answer the question. It is the Texas Research Institute / Emerson College Poll, and it shows the Abbott lead has again shrunk -- and was now down to single-digits. It shows Abbott now has a 7 point lead (49% to 42%). Wendy Davis is definitely chipping away at Abbott's lead -- and with nearly 8 months to go before the election is held, there is plenty of time for her to cut further into that lead (and maybe even dissolve it completely).
It is no surprise that Democrats overwhelmingly support Davis (84.1% to 8.5%) and Republicans show the same kind of support for Abbott (85.5% to 7.9%), but the interesting part come with the Independents. They show only a 1.9 point lead for Abbott, which has to be well within the poll's margin of error. In other words, Independents are split on this race.
The poll's only real disappointment is among women voters, who currently prefer Abbott 46% to 42.1%. But there are still 11.9% of women who are still undecided, and if Davis gets most of those undecideds to vote for her, this could easily turn into a very interesting gubernatorial race -- a race that could be won by a Democrat. To do that, Davis needs to get back to her championing of women's rights and issues -- and this week it looks like she's doing just that.
A few days ago, Davis attacked Abbott for opposing equal pay for women while accepting a 62% raise for himself. Abbott had no defense for the charge, since he is on record as opposing equal pay for women. Instead he let some Republican women try to defend him. Cari Christman, the head of RedState Women (a Texas GOP PAC), said women were "too busy" to worry about equal pay for the work they do. And Beth Cubriel, executive director of the Texas GOP, said women need to learn to be as good a negotiators as men.
Those are some pretty feeble attempts to defend Abbott's belief that women don't deserve equal pay for equal work. In this day and age, there is simply no excuse for women to be paid less than men for equal work -- and Texas women know that. This is just the kind of issue Davis needs to be campaigning on if she wants to win this race.
