The San Antonio Express-News reports that "Last year’s Miss Texas is entering another competition where she’ll be judged on her talents, leadership abilities and appearance. But this time it won’t be a beauty pageant. Averie Bishop became the first Asian American winner of the Miss Texas competition in its 85-year history. Now she’s running for the Texas House."
What's the Richardson connection? Two, actually. Averie Bishop is running for Texas House District 112, which includes much of Richardson up to the Collin County line. And Averie Bishop was crowned Miss Texas at the Eisemann Center right here in Richardson.
Texas House District 112 has been in the hands of a Republican since at least 2008, when Angie Chen Button first won the office. But Angie Chen Button is getting squeezed farther and farther to the outskirts of Dallas County. Her margins in elections in the old District 112 got smaller and smaller, until she barely won in 2020, by only 222 votes out of 60,000+ total. So after the 2020 census, the GOP legislature gerrymandered her district to make it a safe GOP seat once more. In 2022, she won easily by 6,620 votes out of 67,000+ total.
Can Averie Bishop flip a district tailored for Angie Chen Button? Seeing that it was gerrymandered to be a safe Republican seat, flipping it would be a tall order for any Democrat. But Averie Bishop is not just any candidate.
Averie Bishop seems like an ideal candidate to challenge Angie Chen Button. Smart (SMU law school graduate), personable (a former Miss Texas), and Asian-American (which counterbalances Button's own ethnic appeal). She's someone who is able to get press coverage. Already she's been profiled in the Washington Post ("An unlikely provocateur, Miss Texas, takes on the state’s GOP leaders"). The Post says she has "828,000 followers on TikTok, 80,000 on Instagram and 66,500 on her YouTube vlog." And she knows how to campaign. The Washington Post says, "As Miss Texas, she’s traveled more often and farther than her predecessors, about 70,000 miles, speaking in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Connecticut, Ohio, Wisconsin and even England. She’s addressed scholars at Oxford and the national Cattle Feeders Association. She has driven more than 45,000 miles across Texas, cycling through seven cars from a pageant sponsor."
Will she win? Stay tuned. 2024 will be here sooner than you think.
"A law school's bright mind,
Miss Texas with heart aligned,
District's fate redesigned."
—h/t ChatGPT
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