Key Players and Comparative Analysis of Wendy Davis Political Campaign - Paper Example

Wendy Davis lost the Texas gubernatorial race due to the campaign strategies that were majorly used for the fundraising. In the United States, fundraising is one of the most important aspects of any political campaigns. It is also an indicator of how much support one has in any given area. As such, the trend on Daviss campaign fundraising depicted quite a sour state of affairs for the gubernatorial candidate (Enten, 2014). A keen look at her campaign strategies through evaluation and comparative analysis will stand to show that Daviss fundraising strategies showed significant impact on the eventual results of the gubernatorial race in Texas.

One significant aspect to look at when analyzing the campaign strategies for Wendy Davis that led to her loss is the source of her campaign funding. Ideally, to evaluate the fundraising aspect of any campaign, one has to first find the special interest groups and determine their influence on the resulting gubernatorial race. Looking at Daviss campaign, three major interest groups are represented which include women, legal counsel from all over the country and abortion rights activists (Tilove, McSwane, & McDonald, 2014). These are regarded as the most significant interest groups that set the course for the fundraising aspect of Wendy Daviss campaign.

Wendy Davis received most of her fundraising money due to one significant aspect of her as a gubernatorial candidate. This aspect is that she backed abortion rights. The support that she displayed concerning abortion rights seemed to resonate well with most of the people in and out of Texas. However, out of Texas individuals seemed to respond better to the issue of abortion rights as opposed to their Texas counterparts (Root, 2014). The issue of abortion rights seemed to be very significant to her campaign as it brought in most of the donations from various concerned individuals. Women from all over the country who supported abortion rights sent money towards her campaign. These women believed that she was about to change Texas politics if a Democrat candidate won the election. Apart from party politics, women, mostly from out of Texas supported abortion rights and therefore decide to stand with her.

However, much of the money came from two interest groups with one of them being organizations which supported abortion. For example, Emilys List and Planned Parent Hood. These organizations contributed a significant amount of money to Wendy Daviss campaign in cash, in the number of millions of dollars. The organizations also contributed largely in in-kind services. The third significant group of donors of Wendy Daviss campaign was attorneys who were named as one of the State of Texas top Democrat donors. These donors gave Wendy significant amounts of money for her campaign both in cash and in-kind services (Tilove, McSwane, & McDonald, 2014). As such, the three interest groups mentioned above formed the larger population of donors who fundraised a significant amount of money towards the Wendy Davis Campaign (Enten, 2014).

However, as much as Davis got most of her money from interest groups that resonated with her support of abortion rights, most of the money came from out of state. This clearly depicted that she did not have as much support in-state as out of state. The trend of her fundraising records depicted that she had acquired nationwide support that reflected upon her campaign to take the nature of presidential rather than gubernatorial. Most of her donors were either in support of abortion rights as she was or were hopeful that she as a Democrat candidate was going to revolutionize Texas politics for the better. However, Texas politics show that the Republicans had not lost in a gubernatorial race for over three decades (Root, 2014). The underlying history of Texas politics and the trend throughout the ears showed that Wendy Davis was bound to lose the gubernatorial race. This coupled with the fact that she drew more money from out of state that in Texas, depicted the inescapable reality of her impending loss.

On the one hand, Wendy Davis was a strong competitor for the gubernatorial seat in west Texas. However, her strength was resonated through her fundraising strategies and not support from the people of Texas. One significant factor pf Texas politics is that they had a mixture of both individualistic and traditionalistic culture of politics (Enten, 2014). As such, the larger Texas population was partly conservative as well as accepted some change in some aspects of politics. However, Wendy Davis failed to appeal positively to the larger conservative west Texas community. A feat that was accomplished so effortlessly by her opponent Greg Abbott. A deep evaluation of Abbots campaign fundraising records stands to show that he got more support from the Texas population that Wendy Davis. This was further compounded by the fact that the polls showed Abbott had a significant lead against Davis. The culmination of these significant indicators came to the realization on the day of the gubernatorial race.

The majority of Abbotts donors were in Texas with the major donor, who was a Texas billionaire donating $900,000 before his death (Tilove, McSwane, & McDonald, 2014). Abbotts campaign strategies focused on the lives of the people of Texas. As a Republican Abbott was set to succeed in Texas more than Davis. Furthermore, the Davis resonated well with the nationwide presence while Abbott was little known to people outside of Texas. As such, more of the Texas population supported Abbott more than they supported Davis. The majority of interest groups that aided Abbotts can be said to be undecidedly from within Texas (Prokop, 2014). As a former state attorney, Abbott was known more in Texas as Davis was outside Texas.

Fundraising campaign records stand to show that more people donated to Abbotts campaign in Texas. This can be viewed as the result of the interactive nature of Abbotts campaign that resonated well with the Texas population. A keen look at Abbotts campaign strategies which included visiting the workstations of most of Texas population showing that he understood their way of life (Root, 2014). Abbott, therefore, appealed to the largely conservative Texas population which generally agreed with the tactics, policies and political culture of the Republican supporters.

The comparative analysis stands to show that Wendy Davis lost the gubernatorial race because there were things she could have done better than she did. The impending failure was evident from the start of her campaign and was strongly asserted by her campaign fundraising records. One of the things she could have done better was to gain as much support in Texas as she did from outside Texas (Prokop, 2014). Her campaign strategies were out of place and did not resonate well with the larger conservative Texas population especially the aspect of abortion rights. Furthermore, most of her supporters from out of Texas believed that the gubernatorial race was a closed raced due to the fact that no Democrat had won in Texas for the last 30 years. As such, she lacked significant support from the Texas people which was manifested well enough in her campaign fundraising records. The only significant change that would have impacted her campaign positively was to appeal to the Texas people by interacting with them and their lifestyle. This would have resonated with most of the population making her garner significant support to increase her chances of winning the gubernatorial race.

References

Enten, H. (2014). Wendy Daviss Campaign Was Bad, But That Probably Didnt Matter. FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wendy-daviss-campaign-was-bad-but-that-probably-didnt-matter/ Accessed [7 February 2018].

Prokop, A. (2014). Wendy Davis is losing. But she was always going to lose. Vox. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2014/10/23/7022011/wendy-davis-texas-governor-losing Accessed [7 February 2018].

Root, J. (2014). Wendy Davis lost badly. Heres how it happened.. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/11/06/wendy-davis-lost-really-badly-heres-how-it-happened/?utm_term=.95175e41d108 Accessed [7 February 2018].

Tilove, J., McSwane, D. J. & McDonald, C. (2014). Where Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott draw their fundraising support. mystatesman. Retrieved from http://www.mystatesman.com/news/where-wendy-davis-and-greg-abbott-draw-their-fundraising-support/bM7RTC5WQoPUNc7SAFi0OJ/ Accessed [7 February 2018].