Texas is the biggest prize for the March 1 Super Tuesday primaries

Twice a day, throngs of tourists — many from as far away as Asia and Europe — gather in the historic Fort Worth Stockyards a few miles from the city’s gleaming downtown to watch a herd of longhorns parade along Exchange Avenue.

The re-creation of scenes that played out in Fort Worth when it was a dusty cowtown more than a century ago is just one of the many ways that Texas pays tribute to its fabled rough-hewn heritage. Cattle and oil, cowboys and wildcatters, pioneer courage and outsize bravado — all given lasting immortality in movies and novels — still help define the Lone Star mystique as much as ever.

But the Texas of today is also a bright and shiny new frontier, a land of opportunity boasting the nation’s fastest-growing cities and a surging, diversified economy that has helped Texas largely outpace the rest of the country in population growth and job creation.

Given its reputation as one of the nation’s reddest red states, non-Texans might be surprised that the Lone Star State was throughly dominated by Democrats from the end of the Civil War until well past the midpoint of the 20th century.

But Republicans began making gains in the late 1970s and have held power for the last two decades. The last Democratic governor was Ann Richards, who left office in 1995. The last time Texans voted for a Democrat for president was Jimmy Carter in 1976.

As the largest state in the March 1 Super Tuesday primaries, Texas could play a dominant role in the nomination fight in both parties. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has longtime ties to Texas, has consistently held a solid lead among Democrats, aided by strong support among Hispanics, the state’s fastest-growing and most sought-after constituency.

On the Republican side, first-term U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has maintained an unbroken hold among grassroots conservatives since he staged a come-from-behind Republican runoff victory over former Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to win his Senate seat in 2012.

That victory, fueled by the state’s take-no-prisoners Tea Party wing, immediately propelled Cruz into national prominence as an unpredictable Republican maverick. Poll after poll has showed Cruz leading as a presidential favorite in Texas, although Donald Trump has also surged.

Although Texans are generally divided among Republicans, Democrats and independents, the majority seem to share a strong conservative streak reflected by a deep distrust of federal government and the general belief that state and local political leaders can do a better job confronting pressing problems than politicians in Washington.

“Texans still have this kind of optimism and confidence in the way we’re doing things compared to the way everybody else is doing things,” said University of Texas professor Daron Shaw, who conducts the Texas Lyceum Poll. In the latest Lyceum Poll of Texas adults, conducted in September, only 18 percent identified themselves as liberals. Twenty-nine percent said they are moderates, and the most — 43 percent — said they are conservative.

Growth continues

Over the last decade-plus, Texas has grown faster than other states to amass a population of nearly 27 million, and hundreds of new residents march into the state every 24 hours. State Demographer Lloyd Potter says the nation’s second-largest state adds about 1,000 people daily — half through births, the other half from out-of-state migration.

Along with the people have come legions of corporate transplants, many of them Fortune 500 companies, drawn by the state’s favorable tax climate and pro-business policies rigidly advanced and protected by the state’s conservative Republican leadership. The headquarters of two corporations based in Torrance, Calif. — Toyota North America and Farmer Brothers Coffee — are both relocating to Dallas-Fort Worth, the nation’s fourth-most-populous metropolitan region.

“We studied a lot of different places and Texas rose to the top,” said Mike Keown, president and CEO of Farmer Brothers.

Even though one of the state’s economic mainstays — the oil industry — suffered in recent months with a prolonged drop in oil prices, economic diversification through 21st-century growth industries such as high tech, life science and commercial space development has helped the state continue to expand and retain its claim as a robust job creator. From 2000 to 2013, Texas was responsible for 41 percent of the nation’s job growth, creating 2 million jobs, compared with 2.9 million in the remaining 49 states.

Gov. Greg Abbott and his long-serving predecessor, Rick Perry, have both touted the state’s economic performance as a hallmark of their administrations, traveling to other states in an effort to lure more corporate converts to the Lone Star State. Perry touted the state’s economic record in his two unsuccessful presidential campaigns, and Abbott recently delivered a similar message to Cuban leaders in a recent high-profile trip to the newly open communist nation.

But others point to less flattering statistics to underscore troubling challenges amid the state’s rosy profile of growth and expansion. During the job-creation boom over the last decade and half, the state’s poverty rate increased from 15.1 percent to 17.5 percent, giving the state the 13th-highest poverty rate in the U.S., according to federal census data. The state also has the 10th- highest rate of low-wage jobs in the country and the largest proportion of uninsured residents — 5 million, 19.1 percent of the population.

“We are a leader in creating jobs and that’s a terrific thing,” said Ann Beeson, executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, which advocates for low-income residents. “The problem is we’ve created too many low-wage jobs, and that’s why … you also see this growing poverty and inequality.”

Urban landscape

Another modern-day characteristic that distinguishes Texas from its frontier past is its diverse and urbanized population.

More than 90 percent of the state’s residents live in metro areas, suburbs and adjacent communities, many of them in the burgeoning Interstate 35 corridor linking San Antonio, Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth. Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin and Fort Worth are among the nation’s 10 largest cities, and rapid-fire population growth spreading out from those urban centers has made scores of nearby communities among the fastest-growing the country.

Austin, a once-quiet college town that is now the 11th-largest city in the U.S., exemplifies both the advantages and disadvantages of the state’s urban landscape. Fueled by a vigorous high-tech industry that has given it the nickname “Mini-Silicon Valley,” Austin has sprouted a widening expanse of skyscrapers and boasts an international reputation for music, film and entertainment. But its residents also bristle over traffic congestion, environmental concerns and the soaring cost of living, which has given rise to an issue known as “affordability.”

The big headline over the past two decades has been the explosion in the number of Hispanic residents, who now constitute 38 percent of the population and are being aggressively targeted by both parties with the approach of the presidential election. Democrats have long hoped to unleash Hispanic voting power to mount a comeback in Republican-led Texas but have been generally unsuccessful in getting Hispanics to vote in sufficient numbers to make a difference.

Whatever its pluses or minuses, Texas, at least in the eyes of its boosters, is a place with a rich culture, a fabled past and a bright future. “The name recognition of Texas helps sell Texas,” said David Berzina, executive vice president of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. “It’s an established brand.”

This story was originally published December 28, 2015 at 11:04 AM with the headline "Texas is the biggest prize for the March 1 Super Tuesday primaries."