Wendy Davis

[laughs]

There was, you know, there was Wendy Davis, of course, but she lost by double digits.

Why did you wanna run?

Well, I am Catholic, to be clear.

You know, we have a long history, of course, in this state of Republican nominees, including going back to Governor Perry, not debating his Democratic rivals in the general elections.

You know, there's been sometimes when they would, right? I mean, Abbott did debate, Wendy Davis, and if I remember right, he appeared on stage with Lupe Valdez, but those candidates were not, I would just say, as far as the strength of them being candidates, they weren't on the level of Tallarico.

It doesn't speak to their capacity in other things, but it's a social media campaign, right? I mean, Texas Republicans have kind of been ready for this for a long time, where you never really see the people maybe have an exchange in person.

And instead, it's all just name calling either online or in these ads.

This is this is going to be a challenge to see if Republicans can can actually execute.

Typically, what they do is rebrand their opponents.

You may recall Wendy Davis became Abortion Barbie.

Yeah.

That is Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins speaking on Bloomberg's Balance of Power.

And we got reaction from former Democratic Texas state senator Wendy Davis.

It, it's a gift for Democrats here.

He is showing up and reminding people of all the problems in their lives that he helped to initiate.

He's also reminding people of what the most corrupt presidential administration in our history looks like, and it colors every Republican on the ballot.

That is former Democratic Texas state senator Wendy Davis speaking earlier on Bloomberg's Balance of Power.

Crude oil prices surged today after Iran said it has no intention of backing down from war with the U.S. An official from the Islamic Republic said counter strikes will escalate if the U.S. continues attacking its territory and infrastructure.

The official also said Iran's leaders see the war as an existential threat that leaves them little choice but to keep fighting.

Mm

... m- much like Beto or Wendy Davis or others, I mean, they, they've always gone down a rabbit hole every time on this candidate-

Do you think there's money-

... that they put up

For example, the one here in Texas, which of course is the Attorney General Ken Paxton on the Republican side up against Democrat James Talarico, who right now has the fundraising advantage, and the polls show that this rate, race is incredibly tight, and that Talarico does have a chance at least to flip a red seat blue.

And we got into this earlier today, myself and, uh, my colleague Julie Fine, who is our Texas Bureau Chief.

We spoke with Wendy Davis, who ran for governor in Texas back in 2014 against, uh, Greg Abbott, who of course is the incumbent, uh, governor now and is up for reelection.

She's now running Blueprint Texas, where she's president and CEO, and part of our conversation focused on James Talarico as a candidate, and how he might stack up against Ken Paxton ultimately.

Over there in the governor and lieutenant governor races, I mean, you know, Greg Abbott – Four years ago was running against Beto, and everybody remembers who he was.

He was running against Wendy Davis, and everybody was sort of aware of her.

Lupe Valdez in 2018, not so much.

Here's my long-winded question.