Democratic Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis made national news with her filibuster of an abortion bill last week, but not enough to give her an easy shot at taking Gov. Rick Perry’s job.
Davis’ 11-hour filibuster last week ran out the clock on the legislative session and helped prevent the passage of a law restricting abortions. The law is likely to be passed by the Republican controlled legislature in the next session, which convened Monday, but the filibuster catapulted Davis to national fame and made her a superstar on the left.
Over the weekend, she said she would take a “second look” at a possible gubernatorial run.
But according to a Public Policy Polling poll released Tuesday, although Texans, by a narrow margin, approve of Davis’ filibuster and dislike the bill, they are not ready to support her for governor.
Davis trails incumbent governor and erstwhile presidential candidate Perry by 14 points, 39 percent to 53 percent. That is in spite of the fact that Perry has an upside down approval rating: 45 percent approve, 50 percent disapprove of his job performance, while 39 percent of Texans view Davis favorably compared to 29 percent who view her unfavorably.
By a small margin, Texans said they approved of her filibuster. 45 percent said they supported it, while 40 percent said they did not. 28 percent of Texas voters said they opposed Senate Bill 5, the bill that Davis filibustered, compared to 20 percent who supported it.
The poll surveyed 500 Texas voters over the period of June 28 to July 1, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.