There are a lot of things I thought I would never see happen in Texas politics. Just to pick a few across a vast and varied spectrum: Ann Richards’s election to the governorship in 1990 seemed miraculous — a sign that Texas had turned a corner and was finally heading in a progressive direction. Of course it didn’t, as we saw with her successor George W. Bush and his ascendancy to the presidency in the 2000 election, a step in a different direction but no less surprising to those who had seen, up close and personal, his pretty confounding lack of gravitas.

State Senator Wendy Davis in pink running shoes giving the anti-abortion boys in the Legislature what-for with her 2013 filibuster was another “this can’t be happening” moment. Some jolts have come on a micro scale, as when I recently learned that a group of liberal friends in Austin occasionally had breakfast with Karl Rove. A master builder of Republican dominance in Texas and elsewhere has transitioned from Evil Genius to Wise Man.

But the head spinning-est thing I have witnessed in a long time is Bernie Sanders’s rise to within spitting distance of victory in the Texas Democratic primary on Super Tuesday. Yes, the polls have tightened — Mr. Sanders surged after voting in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, but it has settled into a close race with former Vice President Joe Biden. (Mr. Sanders was ahead of Mr. Biden by an average of about five points before the South Carolina primary results were factored in.)

But still. That Mr. Sanders is doing so well in the state that gave the country Tom DeLay (“The Exterminator”) and Ted Cruz (“Darth Vader”), among many, many other conservative politicians, is mind boggling, especially because — as every man, woman and child now knows — no Democrat has been elected to a major political office in the state since the days of Ann Richards.