Wendy Davis’ Emotional Concession Speech For Texas Governor’s Race

Wendy Davis, Democrat candidate for Texas Governor, lost her bid for election Tuesday night to Republican foe Greg Abbott, who took 59 percent of the vote in early returns, reported the Washington Post.

Davis, who rose to political prominence over a year ago after conducting a one-woman 11-hour pink shoes filibuster against a bill that restricted abortion rights, could not overcome the Republicans’ Texas red state advantage. No Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since 1990, when Ann Richards won and became Texas Governor.

In her concession speech, Davis told supporters, “What we have done here in this state and in this campaign is nothing short of extraordinary,” and listed her campaign’s platform highlights as “championing education, fighting for sexual assault survivors, pushing to raise the minimum wage, demanding greater awareness of the hazardous chemicals hidden in our communities, and working to protect women’s access to health care and rooting out the culture of corruption that has sold out and short-changed hardworking Texans.”

In her emotional speech, Wendy Davis cited quotes from several people who inspired Davis during her life as well as her campaign, such as Teddy Roosevelt (“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error or shortcoming”). Davis then quoted civil rights leader Barbara Jordan (“I get from the soil and spirit of Texas the feeling that I, as an individual, can accomplish whatever I want to and that there are no limits, that you can just keep going. Just keep soaring. I like that spirit”).

Davis ended her speech with a heartfelt tribute to her mother.

“When I think about that kind of spirit. I think about my mother, who is standing here with me tonight. My mother is the embodiment of what it means to have a Texas spirit because she wanted nothing more than for her children to have a better life than she had, to have an education beyond the ninth-grade education that she had, to live happier lives, more successful ones than she had been able to live. And you know what? She raised the daughter who ran for governor.”

After her speech, Davis stayed to shake the hand of the last of her supporters as reported by ABC affiliate WFAA.

This race was a major defeat for Wendy Davis as well as for the Democratic party. According to a previous report by the Inquisitr, the 2014 election predictions that voting would heavily favor the Republican party, and these predictions became a reality on election night when the Republican party gained control of the Senate.