Wendy Davis' Bubble Bursts When Matched Against Rick Perry

Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis won national attention and praise from her fellow Democrats for filibustering against a bill on abortion last week -- but a new poll shows her appeal is limited in the Lone Star State.

A poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP), a firm with connections to prominent Democrats, released Tuesday, shows Davis is gaining in stature and popularity but would be toast against Gov. Rick Perry in 2014. While PPP finds Davis is more popular than Perry, she still gets blown out by him in a hypothetical 2014 match-up. Davis is seen as favorable by 39 percent of Texas voters and unfavorable by 29 percent of them. On paper, thats better than Perry who is upside down with 50 percent disapproving of his performance in Austin and 45 percent approving of it.

Wendy Davis made a strong first impression on Texas voters last week, said DeanDebnam, president of PPP. But the chances that the state turns blue in 2014 still look pretty slim.

Slim indeed. The poll shows Republicans moving back to Perry who has a larger lead in the new PPP poll over potential primary opponents than past PPP surveys. Perry also does well against Democrats, routing Davis 53 percent to 39 percent and besting rising Democratic star Julian Castro 50 percent to 43 percent.

National pundits overestimated Perrys chances for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Perrys gaffe-ridden bid for the White House makes it easy to write him off. While Perry is an underdog to be sure for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 -- and Perry has kept the door open to it -- he remains very strong in Texas. Perry is the longest serving governor in Texas history and held off some impressive competition, including Kay Bailey Hutchison, to remain in Austin. He remains a major political force in the second largest state in the nation, whatever his prospects at the national level.

The poll of 500 Texas voters was taken from June 28-July 1 and had a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percent.