Wendy Davis did very poorly in her campaign to become Texas’ next governor, that much is obvious.
But supporters trying to dull the pain by claiming she never had a chance in deeply red Texas are ignoring the fact that not only did Davis perform poorly, she performed “unusually” poorly for a Democrat in the state.
Even though Democrats typically lose in statewide elections in Texas, they tend to finish their campaigns with a net positive favorability rating.
Not Davis, according to FiveThirtyEight reporter Harry Enten.
Davis began her campaign in October 2013 with a net favorable rating of +6, meaning more people liked her than didn’t like her. By February 2014, her favorability had dropped to just +1. By the end of the campaign it sat as -4, meaning more people disliked than liked her.
“You might expect that a major statewide Democrat wouldn’t be well-liked in Texas. But that would be a bad assumption,” Enten wrote. “I looked at final net favorable ratings (where such surveys were available in the last two months of the campaign) for every Texas Democratic gubernatorial and senatorial candidate since 2002 — and it turns out that Davis was the only one with a negative rating.”
Enten even made a helpful chart.
Enten did point out that the favorability trend was heading in this direction prior to Davis’ campaign, but she represented the largest drop in a Democrat’s favorability since Bill White lost to Gov. Rick Perry in 2010. He finished up with a net positive favorability rating of +9.
