When Rick Perry announced that he wouldn't be running for a fourth term in the Governor's mansion, while some were glad that we'd be finally getting rid of him, others immediately wrote off the Governor's race for any Democrat.
Now, some people probably felt that Democrats had zero chance of winning even against Perry -- and, yeah, if you thought that, then I can see why you'd also think that Democrats would have zero chance against some other Republican.
But some others, I think, are either underestimating the electoral strength of Rick Perry, overestimating the electoral strength of Greg Abbott, or some combination of both. Basically, Democrats' chances of winning the Governor's mansion in 2014 didn't just leave the room. They might have even improved, strange as it is to say.
How's that possible? Well, perhaps Rick Perry looked beatable, but here's the thing: Rick Perry looked beatable in 2006 and 2010, too. Didn't happen -- although if Democrats had had a candidate of Bill White's quality in the 2006 race, they might have won. But basically -- it's difficult to imagine the type of voter who votes for Greg Abbott over Wendy Davis (or another Democrat), but doesn't also vote for Rick Perry over a Democrat. The types of people who are dissatisfied with Perry generally fall into two camps: Republicans who would prefer another Republican (but aren't about to vote for a Democrat), and Democrats who aren't going to vote for Greg Abbott, either. The swing voters, oddly enough, are actually probably less likely to vote for Abbott.
As for Abbott, there's something of a Republican Jesus effect going on. For a man who's been on a statewide ballot five times since 1996 (twice for the Supreme Court, three times for Attorney General), Abbott is surprisingly undefined in the minds of most voters. Incredibly, in those five runs for statewide office he's never faced a contested Republican primary. I mean, he's never even faced token opposition. And, in his first run for Supreme Court, he drew no Democratic opponent, while in his other Supreme Court run and his last two runs for Attorney General, he only drew token Democratic opposition. Only in 2002 did he draw a serious Democratic opponent in then-Austin Mayor Kirk Watson; 2002 was the last time that Democrats really contested the downballot offices.
In other words -- while Abbott is well-funded, and while he's a statewide elected official, he's not really battle-tested. We know exactly what Perry's flaws are, and he's drawn serious challenges in the last three election cycles. Abbott surely has flaws, but thanks to the fact that he hasn't been seriously tested, nobody really knows what they are. It's plausible that he's actually more flawed than Rick Perry, strange as that might be. Who can really say for sure?
Again -- Republican Jesus. Abbott is assumed to be a better candidate than Perry because, at this point, he's basically a generic Republican. Generic Republican is more appealing than Rick Perry -- but there's no such thing as Generic Republican. Abbott won't get a free pass to the Governor's mansion, and somewhere along the way, something will go wrong. Tom Pauken is going to continue running for Governor, for all we know David Dewhurst might jump in -- somebody is going to challenge this guy.
It's still going to be an uphill battle for Democrats. But don't assume that there's no chance now that Perry is out.
