AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Without Gov. Rick Perry on the ballot for the first time since 2000, Texas politics was poised to undergo a major shake-up Tuesday, starting with the race for governor between the state’s staunchly conservative Republican attorney general and a Democratic champion of abortion rights.
For many prognosticators, the only remaining question about the governor’s race heading into Election Day was: By how much will Greg Abbott defeat state Sen. Wendy Davis?
Three possible 2016 GOP presidential candidates — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and Perry — were already set to toast Abbott at an Austin victory party on Tuesday night. If expectations from pundits and opinion polls hold, the celebration figures to be a swaggering, told-you-so mocking of Democrats who put unprecedented resources into retaking Texas.
Up and down the ballot, Republicans were heavily favored to sweep unheralded Democratic challengers and to extend a 20-year streak of GOP victories in statewide races. The election is taking place under a strict Texas voter ID law that Abbott successfully kept intact at the U.S. Supreme Court, and that Democrats say will prevent roughly 650,000 people from casting a ballot.
Pete Turcinovic voted Tuesday in The Woodlands, north of Houston, and threw his support to Abbott, describing himself as “a straight ticket voter.”
“I think he’s been more progressive than Perry, a more critical thinker,” the 46-year-old physician said of Abbott. “I’m not a tea party Republican. I’m more of a moderate. And I think he’s in that vein. Clearly Davis is more to the left side, and her politics just don’t suit me.”
Melanie Barnes, a research scientist at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, said she voted for Davis, who she believes would secure federal funding for women’s and children’s health care.
Barnes, 60, said she’s very concerned with restoring state education funding that the Legislature slashed in 2011 and improving student performance. “Because, to be honest, I’d like to have someone have something intelligent to say to me when they’re emptying my bedpan in years to come,” she said.
She spoke Tuesday from a coffee shop to avoid heavy rain that fell on Lubbock and other parts of West Texas. Voters in North Texas also were besieged by rain, in addition to strong winds. Polling sites in metro regions did not have lines of people waiting to cast a ballot but there was a steady flow of voters.
In El Paso, Republican Cosmo Tomacelli said he wished Perry had sought another term. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said.
Tomacelli said he’s pleased with the direction of the state but thinks the Legislature “should stop spending money foolishly.”
Bryonie White, a 23-year-old caregiver at a group home, voted in Davis’ home turf of Fort Worth and said she supports Democratic candidates because they’re more likely to focus on the issue most important to her: education.
“We have got to worry about the kids staying in school — less dropout rates,” White said. “Education is one good key to life. You’ve got to graduate from high school. You’ve got to have a good education.”
Right up to Election Day, Davis reminded critics she’s been counted out before — both personally and politically. She repeatedly retraced her climb from single motherhood in a trailer park to Harvard Law School, a made-for-TV story that helped land her a book deal and national speaking tour, and two comeback victories for her state Senate seat.
But beating Abbott would rank among the biggest political upsets in the U.S.
Her campaign raised a record $36 million for a Texas Democrat and was engineered by architects of President Barack Obama’s re-election. But public opinion polls have consistently shown her trailing in double-digits. Even as far back as April, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association didn’t include Texas while ticking off a list of winnable races.
Davis — who became a national sensation in summer 2013 with a nearly 13-hour filibuster in the state Senate that temporarily blocked new abortion restrictions — vowed to upend decades of Republican politics and expand Medicaid, boost school funding and fight to raise the minimum wage.
Abbott, meanwhile, campaigned on preserving a Republican status quo of economic growth and defiance toward Washington that Perry made his legacy during a record 14 years as governor. When Perry announced last year that he wouldn’t seek a fourth full term — while not ruling out another White House run — no other Republican dared challenge Abbott’s popularity or a $20 million head start in fundraising.
Abbott, who lost the use of both his legs in 1984 after a tree crashed on him while jogging, would become the nation’s first elected governor in a wheelchair since 1982, when George Wallace won his final term in Alabama.
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