State Sen. Wendy Davis’s (D) new pollster thinks the media could have done a better job on recent reporting of the Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s life story.
Joel Benenson, who joined the campaign earlier this month, said news outlets had repeatedly made “outrageous” mistakes in reporting on Davis’s life story. Benenson’s comments, during an event hosted by the Third Way think tank on Wednesday, come after reports that Davis blurred aspects of her life story. Conservatives have tried to capitalize on this by branding Davis a serial liar.
Benenson said Davis has addressed that criticism numerous time, including during a speech Tuesday night.
“I would refer you to her speech last night, her remarks in Travis County,” Benenson said. “She addressed it head on, her daughters addressed it head on. “
Benenson said the media had botched covering how Davis paid for law school and whether she lost custody of her children.
“The repetition of the mistakes, sloppiness, in the stories that were reported are outrageous. The notion that people repeated what one reporter wrote saying that she had lost custody of her children, which is completely false, she never lost custody of her children,” Benenson said. “She addressed it head-on last night. And that that got repeated all over the country is ridiculous. The fact that it got repeated that her husband paid for Harvard Law school when she got out of law school, was a successful lawyer for ten years, contributed significantly to the family finances and they paid off those loans together was completely false and she addressed those head-on.
“I think Wendy is a strong, tough, Texas woman and as she said to Greg Abbott last night in her remarks, ‘you picked a fight with the wrong Texas gal.'”
A day earlier Davis’ two daughters, Dru and Amber, pushed back on criticism about Davis’ relationship to them.
“I hate that I feel the need to write this, but I have been reading and hearing so many untrue things about my mom and I want to set the record straight,” Dru wrote in a letter quoted by The Washington Post. “And sadly I feel the need to be crystal clear on the malicious and false charge of abandonment as nothing could be further from the truth.”
