LEWISVILLE, Texas (AP) — Deep in the heart of Texas’ sprawl, the city of Lewisville embodies the Lone Star State.
Bisected by Interstate 35 and ribboned with six- and eight-lane thoroughfares lined with chain stores, Mexican restaurants and pawn shops, Lewisville, 23 miles north of Dallas, is the prototypical slice of the nation’s second most populous state. Its typical resident is about 36 years old, the same as in Texas. Similar to statewide, 6 out of 10 residents are not white, and about two-thirds of its voters cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election.
Next door is the city of Flower Mound, a swath of swanky subdivisions with names such as Teal Wood Oaks and Chaucer Estates. Flower Mound looks more like the electorate that has kept Texas dominated by Republicans for decades. It is wealthier than Lewisville, more than two-thirds of its residents are white, and 78% of them voted in 2020.
That discrepancy, between the diverse, potential electorate of Lewisville and the actual, heavily white electorate of Flower Mound, has been the subtext for the past two decades of U.S. politics.