Lupe Valdez for Governor of Texas

Following Tuesday’s run-off election, former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez is now the Democratic Party’s nominee for Governor of Texas.

She has an incredible story. Her rise to political prominence is not the same route that the long line of white male Texans took to the office.

To become the political leader of the Lone Star State, Valdez will need to beat Republican Governor Greg Abbott who is already posting attack ads against Valdez to his YouTube page.

Abbott claims that Valdez is too liberal for Texas. I suppose she could be too liberal to win a state-wide office, but that depends on how you choose to define Texas. Is Texas the beet red state with right-wing Christians on every neatly trimmed suburban block? Or is Texas the multicultural melting pot of all melting pots with four the nation’s most vibrant urban centers? Right now, the state is both, but one of these definitions is about to overtake the other, for good.