Texas governor debate: Wendy Davis fails to land blows on Republican rival

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/20/texas-governor-debate-wendy-davis-republican-rival

Version 0 of 1.

The leading candidates to succeed Rick Perry as Texas governor faced off on Friday night in the first of two televised debates ahead of November’s election.

Perry is stepping down after a record 14 years as governor and is considering a second bid for the White House. In the race to replace him, the Democrat Wendy Davis is trying to upset the odds in the heavily Republican state. She did not appear to land any significant blows on her opponent, Greg Abbott, on a night when both candidates efficiently outlined their key policies without making any gaffes.

Davis rose to fame last year when she spoke for rather longer than she did on Friday, staging an epic filibuster in the Texas senate against tough new abortion laws. The measures ultimately passed, but the 51-year-old state senator from Fort Worth parlayed the national attention and local momentum into the Democratic nomination in a state where the party has not won a statewide election since 1994.

Despite a high level of media interest, most recently in the high-profile launch of her memoir – which revealed she had two abortions for medical reasons in the 1990s – she has consistently trailed Abbott in the polls. Earlier in the race Davis largely shied away from talking about abortion, seemingly wary of being viewed as a single-issue candidate. But the issue was addressed early in Friday’s discussion.

Davis accused Abbott – who backed the new laws – of failing to protect Texas women, while he indicated he is willing to go even further to restrict abortions.

“Women should be able to make this most personal and difficult of decisions themselves guided by their faith and their family and with their doctor. I stood on the Senate floor for 13 hours to ensure that this most private of decisions could be made by women,” Davis said.

Abbott responded: “I am pro-life and I am Catholic and like most Texans I believe that all life is sacred. As governor I will develop a culture of life in this state so we can do even more to protect both women and children … women still have five months [after becoming pregnant] to make a very difficult decision but after that time the state has interest in protecting innocent life.”

Before the debate, a poll aggregator on Real Clear Politics gave Abbott a 12.6% advantage.

Mustafa Tameez, a Houston-based political strategist, said that while he believes Davis is closing the gap, the debate did little to boost her prospects.

“Senator Davis is a strong, viable, credible candidate who has raised a substantial amount of money and is the best candidate for Democrats – but it’s still an uphill battle,” he said.

“They’re both shrewd politicians and neither made a mistake that’s going to change the race. It’s not the kind of debate that’s going to move the needle for anybody.”

The hour-long event was streamed online but only televised live in a limited number of Texas media markets. It took place in a studio set up in a hospital in the small Rio Grande Valley city of Edinburg. The region has attracted nationwide attention this year as the epicentre of a wave of border crossings by unaccompanied central American children.

The unusual south Texas location was an indicator of the growing political importance of Hispanics, who make up about 40% of the state’s population. Davis echoed state Republicans’ language on border security when she backed a surge of local law enforcement troops there and said “If the federal government will not act to secure our border, Texas must and we will”, though she criticised Perry’s decision to send National Guard troops to the frontier as unwanted and expensive.

Both candidates support the death penalty. They staked out contrasting positions on healthcare and education funding, driving permits for undocumented immigrants, the state’s voter ID law and raising the minimum wage.

“We don’t need these Obama-style mandates telling business how to run their business,” said Abbott, adding that the “free market” should decide wages, not the federal government.

“Raising the minimum wage is not only good for Texas families, it’s good for our economy,” Davis said.

Davis had challenged Abbott to six debates but he only agreed to participate in two. Aware that his lead suggests he should win comfortably unless he makes a major blunder, Abbott has run a low-key campaign that has sought to depict Davis as a proponent of “California-style” liberalism who is closely linked to the US president, Barack Obama – a widely unpopular figure in Texas.

In the candidate-to-candidate questions segment, Abbott began by asking Davis: “Do you regret voting for Barack Obama?” She dodged the question.

Each has claimed the other has been guilty of ethical lapses. On Friday, Davis continued the theme and tried to characterise Abbott as an insider who protects the political elite at the expense of ordinary people. The 52-year-old has served as Texas attorney general since 2002.

Davis declined to comment on whether she believed Perry deserved to be indicted by a grand jury last month on charges related to his threat to veto of funding for an anti-corruption unit. “I won’t second-guess the justice system,” she said. Abbott said it was “bizarre” that a governor could be indicted for exercising his constitutional authority.

In her closing statement, Davis sought to stress that her background means she understands the needs of ordinary Texans, evoking her powerful – though reportedly fuzzy – personal story as a single mother who lived in a mobile home before going to Harvard Law School.

“I am you, I have never forgotten who I am or where I come from,” she told voters.Abbott said he would maintain and enhance the state’s economic success, improve school standards and continue to fight “for your liberty against an overreaching federal government.”

The next debate is in Dallas on 30 September and the election is on 4 November.