Failed Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis is keeping an eye on the "electoral climate in Texas" as she decides when she should make another political run, she wrote in Cosmopolitan.
Davis, in a piece on how she "came back stronger after losing" by over 20 points in her 2014 run for governor, says she still has hopes to run again for office some day.
"I'm trying to figure out when I should put myself back out there, and when will the electoral climate in Texas be right for me," Davis wrote.
"I want to serve this state," she wrote. "I see so much that needs to be done, and I want to play a role in helping making it happen. So I’ll keep asking myself these important questions until I figure it out."
Davis compared her election loss to the crushing 2016 defeat of fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton, for whom Davis actively campaigned (Clinton herself could have given Davis a seat in her administration). Davis wrote that Clinton's loss hurt worse than her own because "the stakes were so high," but that both runs were a success because of the people that were inspired by their runs.
"When I think about [Clinton's] loss—which, to be honest, I felt more deeply than either of my two political losses just because the stakes were so high—I know that she’s inspired so many people to continue to fight on behalf of the things she was championing," Davis wrote.
Davis also wrote that, like Clinton, she dealt with her election loss by drinking copious amounts of alcohol on a postelection trip to Costa Rica with her two daughters.
"We were either going to be celebrating and having some margaritas or we were going to be crying in our margaritas," Davis wrote. "That whole trip, my daughters just conveyed their pride in me. And then they made sure I had something with alcohol in it in my hand pretty much the whole time."
Davis does not mention the financial trouble she fell into following her 2014 defeat, which caused her to hold an estate sale at her Fort Worth, Texas, home during which she sold massive amounts of clothing, jewelry, artwork, and even lingerie for discount prices.
The Washington Free Beacon was able to purchase a pair of Davis's iconic pink Mizuno shoes for just $120.
Davis complains in her Cosmopolitan piece that her famous filibuster of an abortion bill actually hurt her campaign because it pigeonholed her and allowed Republicans to label her as "Abortion Barbie."
"I was only introduced as someone who fought for abortion rights," she wrote. "Which I never wanted to shy away from—that was absolutely a very important part of who I am and what I stand for—but I didn’t ever really get beyond that with a lot of people."
"My Republican opponents took advantage of that," she wrote. "It was not by accident, it was very strategic that they began referring to me as 'Abortion Barbie.'"
Davis also claims that 2014 was a bad year for her to make her run.
"I really don’t think 2014 was an indicator of whether Texas is or is not ready to turn blue," she wrote. "I think 2014 was just a horrific year for Democratic candidates all over the country, and unfortunately that became part of our story."