HOUSTON, Texas — Legendary liberal satirist Molly Ivins spent her entire career trying to explain Texas and its politics to the rest of the nation. In a 2003 piece titled “Is Texas America,” Ivins instructed her readers: “Here’s the deal on Texas. It’s big. So big there are about five distinct and different places here, separated from one another geographically, topographically, botanically, ethnically, culturally and climatically.”

Now, 24 years after Ann Richards, the last Democrat to win statewide, lost the governor’s mansion to a Republican, another Democrat is attempting to push Texas and all of its competing identities to lead the national conversation on the issues of the moment from immigration, to healthcare, and police brutality.