State Sen. Wendy Davis (D) is going after Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, her Republican opponent in the governor’s race, in response to a report that she “blurred” details of her background.
Davis’s comments are in response to a Dallas Morning News report which said she was 21, not 19 when she was divorced and lived for only a few months in a mobile home. Davis’s campaign released a statement highlighting Abbott’s attacks based on the report:
We’re not surprised by Greg Abbott’s campaign attacks on the personal story of my life as a single mother who worked hard to get ahead. But they won’t work, because my story is the story of millions of Texas women who know the strength it takes when you’re young, alone and a mother.
I’ve always been open about my life not because my story is unique, but because it isn’t.
The truth is that at age 19, I was a teenage mother living alone with my daughter in a trailer and struggling to keep us afloat on my way to a divorce. And I knew then that I was going to have to work my way up and out of that life if I was going to give my daughter a better life and a better future and that’s what I’ve done. I am proud of where I came from and I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve through hard work and perseverance. And I guarantee you that anyone who tries to say otherwise hasn’t walked a day in my shoes.
Davis, in an the interview with the Dallas Morning News, admitted that her “language should be tighter.”
“I’m learning about using broader, looser language,” Davis said. “I need to be more focused on the detail.”
Conservatives were quick to attack Davis as a liar but, as The New Republic noted, it’s important to keep a few details in mind through this entire episode. Davis was separated from her first husband, Frank Underwood, when she was 19 or 20. She lived in a mobile home a few months after that before moving in with her mother. She divorced Underwood at 21 and, by then, was living with her daughter Amber in an apartment.
