page_title: Greg Abbott
section_title: 2014 election
hierarchical_section_title: Greg Abbott / Governor of Texas / 2014 election
caption_attribution_description: English: Gregory Abbott speaking at FreePac, hosted by FreedomWorks, in Phoenix, Arizona.
context_page_description: Gregory Wayne Abbott is an American attorney serving as the 48th and current governor of Texas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 50th Attorney General of Texas from 2002 to 2015. He is the third governor of any U.S. state to permanently use a wheelchair. He is also the first disabled governor in Texas history.
  Abbott was the second Republican to serve as Attorney General of Texas since Reconstruction. Prior to assuming the office of attorney general, he was a justice of the Texas Supreme Court, a position to which he was initially appointed in 1995 by then-Governor George W. Bush. He successfully advocated for the right of the state of Texas to display the Ten Commandments in front of the Texas State Capitol in Austin, in a 2005 United States Supreme Court case known as Van Orden v. Perry.
context_section_description: On July 8, 2013, Governor Rick Perry announced that he would not seek a fourth full term.
  On July 14, 2013, speaking near the Alamo on the 29th anniversary of the accident that left him a paraplegic, Abbott formally announced his intention to run for Governor of Texas in the 2014 Texas gubernatorial election. In the first six months of 2011, he raised more funds for his campaign than any other Texas politician, reaching $1.6 million. The next highest fundraiser among state officeholders was Texas comptroller Susan Combs with $611,700.
  In February 2014, while speaking on the dangers of corruption in law enforcement, Abbott compared the South Texas area to a Third World country that "erodes the social fabric of our communities and destroys Texans' trust and confidence in government."
  Abbott further said that he does not consider corruption  "limited to one region of Texas [...] My plan is to add more resources to eliminate corruption so people can have confidence in their government."
  Abbott criticized Ted Nugent's "subhuman mongrel" comment directed at President Barack Obama by saying "This is not the kind of language I would use or endorse in any way. It's time to move beyond this, and I will continue to focus on the issues that matter to Texans."
  Abbott won the Republican primary on March 4, 2014, with 1,219,903, or 91.5% of the ballots cast. The remaining approximately 103,000 votes were divided among three minor candidates. He faced state senator Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, who polled 432,065 votes (79.1%) in her Democratic primary contest against a lone opponent.
  Abbott promised to "tie outcomes to funding" for pre-K programs if elected governor, but he said he would not require government standardized testing for 4-year olds, as Davis has accused him of advancing. When defending his education plan, Abbott cited Charles Murray: "Family background has the most decisive effect on student achievement, contributing to a large performance gap between children from economically disadvantaged families and those from middle class homes." A spokesman for Abbott's campaign pointed out that the biggest difference in spending is that Davis has proposed universal pre-K education while Abbott wants to limit state funding to only programs that meet certain standards. Davis' plan could reach 750 million in costs and Abbott has said that Davis' plan is a "budget buster" whereas Abbott's education plan would cost no more than 118 million. Overall, Abbott said the reforms that he envisioned would "level the playing field for all students [and] target schools which don't have access to the best resources." He has called for increased accessibility to technology in the classroom and mathematics instruction for kindergarten pupils.
  Abbott received 1.4 million in campaign contributions from recipients of the Texas Enterprise Fund, some of whose members submitted the proper paperwork for grants.  Elliot Nagin of the Union of Concerned Scientists observed that Abbott was the recipient of large support from the fossil fuels industries, such as NuStar Energy, Koch Industries, Valero Energy, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips. Abbott received the endorsement of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dallas Morning News, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and the Tyler Morning Telegraph. Abbott, and his lieutenant governor running mate, Dan Patrick, gained an endorsement from the National Rifle Association and received their 'A' rating.
  Abbott defeated Davis by about 19 percentage points in the November general election.
caption: Abbott speaking at FreePac in Phoenix, 2012
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