FORT WORTH — Early this month, Wendy Davis, the unknown Texas state senator who rocketed to fame this summer with her 11-hour filibuster to block an anti-abortion bill, met with strategists of the Democratic Governors Association at their K Street offices in Washington. They were urging her to run for governor next year, even though Texas is not among their realistic targets for flipping a Republican-held executive mansion.

All around Ms. Davis, people are encouraging her to get in the governor’s race. Whether she can win seems beside the point.

Liberal groups in Texas are hungry for her star power to energize the moribund state Democratic Party. Political operatives smell the money that a richly financed Democratic campaign, which early estimates put at $40 million, would direct their way. And national Democrats know a Davis campaign would force the Republican Governors Association to divert millions from more competitive races in Ohio, Florida and Michigan to the Lone Star State.

“The R.G.A. would probably have to waste resources there, which is compelling to us,” said an official of the Democratic group, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly.