Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez, Staff Photographer / Staff Photographer

The March primaries are weeks away, but the first question at a recent forum for the three Democrats running to unseat state Rep. Sarah Davis centered on November: “How do you plan to win this race if you are the nominee?”

The answer has evaded Democrats since the 2010 tea party wave, when Davis flipped the highly affluent and educated House District 134. Widely viewed as the most moderate Republican in the Texas House, she comfortably has retained the seat in four subsequent elections, despite strong headwinds atop the ballot the last two cycles.

Those electoral results are on the minds of voters, and the candidates themselves, in the sleepy Democratic primary between educator Lanny Bose and attorneys Ann Johnson and Ruby Powers. With little evidence of public rancor between them, they instead are directing their attacks toward Davis’ record, each trying to convince voters of their ability to beat her in November.

“My attitude is, we've got three folks who are applying to be team captain. I'm going to be a part of this race in the general whether or not my name is on the ballot,” Bose said. “This primary is about talking about our shared vision for what this seat and what Houston should look like.”

For years, Democrats have argued Davis’ record is far less moderate than she portrays and, at times, framed her as being in lockstep with the Republican establishment. That case lost some of its potency in 2018, when Gov. Greg Abbott backed Davis’ primary opponent and spent lavishly on ads calling Davis a “liberal Democrat.”

This time, Abbott has endorsed Davis — a move Democrats say will help them by repelling moderate voters who were drawn to Davis due to her dustup with Abbott.

“She paints herself as moderate, but Abbott is Abbott, and he's endorsed her,” Powers said. “That speaks volumes.”

Democrats further argue that the potentially explosive turnout of a presidential year election with President Donald Trump topping the Republican ticket, means down-ballot candidates in swing districts largely are at the mercy of the bigger contests. They point to Trump’s unpopularity in Davis’ district, where he secured just 39 percent of the vote in 2016.

Those developments, Democrats contend, will combine with an urgent and organized statewide push to flip the Texas House, making Davis more vulnerable than ever.

Republicans are skeptical Democrats will be able to wield the Abbott endorsement against Davis, or that she will lose under even the most unfavorable conditions.

“I don’t think the voters really — other than the inside baseball participants — care about political endorsements,” said Chris Beavers, a Republican strategist who is not involved in the race. “They care about service, and there is nobody who serves their district more passionately and fully than Sarah Davis does.”

Last cycle, Davis accurately predicted that some statewide Republicans could lose her district — which encompasses the Texas Medical Center, Southside Place, Bellaire, Rice University and West University Place, where she lives — amid a “blue wave” of Democratic voters. The results varied wildly: Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke won 60 percent of the House District 134 vote, while Republican Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick narrowly beat her Democratic opponent there.

Davis captured 53 percent, winning by about 5,600 votes out of nearly 89,000.

That, Davis said, shows the district’s voters “cross the ballot to vote for people, not for parties.”

“My opponents who refer to the district as ‘flippable’ just don't get it,” Davis said. “It isn’t about the party label, it’s about representing the priorities of this unique district regardless of party.”

Johnson, a former prosecutor and the 2012 Democratic nominee, already has reprised some arguments from her first campaign, when she bashed Davis for opposing the Affordable Care Act and took aim at some of her votes on women’s health issues.

This time, Johnson is going after Davis for not supporting expanded Medicaid coverage for low-income residents under the ACA. Davis was absent during a party line vote on the matter last session.

Johnson has told primary voters that her 2012 run, where she received about 45 percent of the vote, makes her best equipped to beat Davis, and she is touting endorsements from former Houston Mayor Annise Parker and former state representative and councilmember Ellen Cohen, whom Davis defeated to win the seat in 2010.

“I believe we are the strongest campaign, and I know that we're the strongest campaign because we've already demonstrated it,” Johnson said.

Powers, an immigration attorney who runs her own law firm, pitches her expertise in that area and knocks Davis for co-sponsoring Senate Bill 4, the so-called “sanctuary cities” law that passed during the 2017 session.

“I have a good grasp of the complexity of immigration law, which is at the heart of a lot of issues in this city and this state,” Powers said. “We don't have anybody who's an expert in immigration law in Austin, and yet it touches so much of Texan life.”

Bose, a former social studies teacher and middle school principal, said he largely is running to improve on House Bill 3, the legislation last session that overhauled Texas’ school finance system.

“Voters are aware that we still have a lot of work to do in terms of education,” Bose said. “And when you look at the makeup of the Texas Legislature, we only have maybe four or five folks with any K12 teaching experience, yet, it's a third of our state's budget.”

The Democratic nominee could benefit from national trends, though Davis could be aided by the end of straight-ticket voting, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. The challenge for Democrats, he said, will be to convince enough voters that Davis is too conservative.

“There is a buffet of specific and narrow things a Democrat could point to that may make her look like she’s more of a conservative Republican than she is,” Rottinghaus said.

The three Democrats recorded similar fundraising hauls during the last reporting period, with Johnson raising the most — about $58,000 — in the last six months of 2019, compared to Bose’s roughly $54,500 total. Powers raised $43,000 and spent nearly $41,000, more than the other two Democrats, while Johnson maintained the most cash on hand — $148,000, two and a half times Bose and Powers’ total combined.

Davis raised about $90,000, and had $231,000 cash on hand.

jasper.scherer@chron.com