Just over a month after capturing national attention with an 11-hour filibuster to delay a vote that would ban all abortions after 20 weeks, Democratic Texas State Senator Wendy Davis announced on Monday that she was considering a bid for governor in 2014.
Davis has hosted two fundraisers in Washington D.C in the past weeks and has, thus far, kept her audiences guessing whether or not she will join the gubernatorial race.
“I can say with absolute certainly that I will be running for one of two offices, either my state senate seat or the governor,” Davis said at the National Press Club on Monday.
Davis promised the public a concrete decision within a couple weeks.
If she chooses to run, Davis will face off with Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott who announced his bid on July 14. Despite having received recent national attention, Davis will fight an uphill battle in Texas, where, as of July, only 39 percent of voters rated her favorably, with the other 61 percent rating her unfavorably or had no opinion. She trailed Abbott by 8 points according to polls asking voters who they preferred as governor.
Nevertheless, many in Texas are hopeful that Davis is the candidate with just the momentum to break out as a liberal in a solidly red state.
“I think there’s great enthusiasm, and she’s probably created more enthusiasm than any Democrat in Texas has created in decades as far as interest from around the country,” Ben Barnes, a former lieutenant governor and Texas House speaker, told the New York Times.
In the meantime, however, Davis has tried to play up her appeal with the typical broad statements of one potentially running for public office.
“For all the rhetoric—and I know we all hear it about big government or small government—Texans want what I think everyone wants,” Davis said on Monday. ”They just want to see good government.”