A rare mix of competitive races up and down the ballot has voters turning up to the polls in droves ahead of Tuesday’s primary election, which will set match-ups in the high-stakes midterms in November.
Austin, TX
Joe Rogan’s Texas house value drops 20% in Austin housing market downturn
What’s New
Joe Rogan’s Texas home has dropped a whopping 20 percent in value as the Austin housing market experiences a rapid downturn.
Rogan originally purchased the home for $14.4 million in 2020, right when Austin was gaining ground as one of the top pandemic era housing markets.
Why It Matters
Many Americans fled to Austin from high-cost areas in New York and California while looking for lower home prices and cost of living. And in the age of remote work and coronavirus shutdowns, many also moved to be in a place with Texas’ minimal social distancing restrictions.
Carmen Mandato/Getty Images
What To Know
Rogan originally moved from California to the Austin property in 2020 after securing a $100 million deal with Spotify.
But now, just four years later, Redfin values the home at just $10.8 million.
Rogan’s home has eight bedrooms and nearly 11,000 square feet. It also boasts a lakeside view, but even the most luxurious estates aren’t immune from Austin’s real estate market changes.
In November, data showed Austin home listings were over 10,000, compared to just 7,000 during the pandemic.
Texas has long been on a population upswing, growing by more than 9 million residents between 2000 and 2022. And the pandemic saw an even larger boost in new people seeking out the state’s job market, warm weather and cheap cost of living.
In 2022 alone, the Lone Star State’s population climbed by 470,708 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Initially, when so many people moved in the pandemic, house prices skyrocketed upwards, as the market was not able to keep up with the surge in demand.
To fix that, Texas home suppliers quickly ramped up construction, but now the housing market is experiencing the opposite problem—too much supply and too little demand, causing prices to trend down.
Still, Austin’s home prices are up 6.8 percent year over year, according to Redfin. That brought a median sale price of $550,000 in November.
What People Are Saying
Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek:
“Austin was one of the hottest real estate markets in the country before the pandemic, and relocating during that stretch of time only increased demand in a city that had fewer statewide health-related restrictions than its contemporaries did. With the pandemic over and remote work becoming for many jobs a thing of the past, there’s less demand, which is incredibly problematic for a city that had been ramping up in creating more housing units to meet a surging market.”
“Texas housing supply has spiked to [its] highest level since at least 2017,” Nick Gerli, CEO of real estate data platform Reventure App, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Active listings are up 25 percent YoY, and a massive 263 percent from the pandemic low. Texas is no longer in an inventory shortage. And is now oversupplied.”
“2020-21 was near the peak of the real estate market in many parts of the country,” title and escrow expert Alan Chang told Newsweek. “During this time, there was so much competition for desirable properties that valuations were increasing at an unsustainable rate. It’s normal for many markets to see some leveling or more substantial corrections after that historic time period.”
“Rising interest rates are the main culprit behind lower housing values,” Kevin Thompson, a finance expert and the founder and CEO of 9i Capital Group, told Newsweek. “Housing prices surged after the pandemic as inflation rose, creating a disconnect between prices and underlying fundamentals. Now, prices are correcting downward, moving back toward equilibrium.”
What’s Next
As Austin sees a surge in new homes becoming available, there will inevitably be less demand in the once thriving housing market.
“It’s a difficult spot to be in, and even homes owned by some of Austin’s wealthiest residents are finding their property down substantially in value from where it was a few short years ago,” Beene said.
Chang said 2025 will likely bring more price correction in the Austin market after the rapid increase seen in the last few years.
“Real estate should be a long-term investment and not a short-term roller coaster that we experienced in the recent past,” Chang said.
Austin, TX
Texas Primary: Breakdown of Texas races
Democrats tried to stop a mid-decade redistricting effort, but were unsuccessful. Now, we are starting to see some of the candidates emerging in those newly drawn districts. FOX 7 Austin’s Rudy Koski gives a full breakdown.
Austin, TX
Remembering Jorge Pederson: Minnesota MMA fighter killed in Austin, Texas, shooting
ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – A shooting on West Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, early Sunday morning, killed three people and injured more than a dozen others, according to the Austin Police Department. APD confirmed one of the victims was 30-year-old Jorge Pederson, a Minnesota man who worked as an MMA fighter for the Med City Fighting Championships.
“You meet tons of fighters and there are people that stand above the rest that you find you enjoy or find the most amusing,” MCFC Co-Owner Matthew Vogt said. “He was definitely one of them.”
According to Vogt, Pederson was also the owner of a Minnesota business called Metro Movers. Vogt said the MMA competitor touched everyone’s hearts since his first day of fighting professionally in Rochester.
“As soon as we met him when it was the weighing time, we just loved the guy already because he had a great mission or spirit about him,” Vogt said. “He was a funny guy and great fighter.”
Vogt told KTTC when he first saw the news that Pederson was killed, he could not believe what he saw.
“I was looking, like, ‘Wait a minute. Is this one of his shenanigans or did something actually happen there?’” Vogt said, recalling the moment he saw a social media post regarding the shooting in Austin. “I confirmed with a few people and I’m just like, sometimes, some things happen that you don’t even like, you don’t even know how to respond to it because it’s just so out of left field that you don’t immediately have a response to it.”
MCFC confirmed there is an online fundraiser dedicated to supporting Pederson’s family. As of Tuesday afternoon, more than $10,000 has been raised.
“He was someone that always could make anybody laugh,” Vogt said. “Support his family through the fundraiser and take a look at his Instagram especially to see how funny he was.”
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Copyright 2026 KTTC. All rights reserved.
Austin, TX
Here are the major statewide and Austin-area races on the ballot Tuesday

A voter heads into the Ben Hur Shrine polling place in Austin as early voting begins for the March primary elections in Texas, Feb. 17, 2026. Voters can cast their ballots to decide who represents Republicans and Democrats in the November midterm elections.
Voters will decide if U.S. Sen. John Cornyn gets to keep the seat he’s held for more than two decades and which candidates will likely take a slew of redrawn congressional seats meant to give Republicans an edge. The races could decide control of Congress.
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TEXAS VOTER GUIDE 2026: What’s on the ballot in Austin on March 3?
Plus, there are multiple statewide office openings for the first time in more than a decade. And voters will decide who will challenge Gov. Greg Abbott as he seeks a record fourth term in office.
U.S. Senate
After more than two decades in the U.S. Senate, John Cornyn’s political career hangs in the balance.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has led most of the public polling leading into the election, as he campaigns on a Make America Great Again platform that seeks to paint the more establishment Cornyn as out of touch. Further complicating Cornyn’s path to reelection is U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston, whose campaign has focused attention on Cornyn’s 74-years of age.
The primary is expected to be one of the tightest statewide races in recent history, with most political observers predicting it will go to a runoff.
On the Democratic side, two of the party’s fastest-rising stars are facing off in a race that has largely been a contrast of styles.
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U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a 44-year-old former public defender, has cast herself as a partisan fighter who is unafraid to go toe-to-toe with President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
State Rep. James Talarico, a 36-year-old former middle school teacher in San Antonio, skyrocketed to national fame last year by leaning into his Christian faith and warning that Republicans are trying to use religion as a wedge by pushing such legislation as requiring public schools to post placards of the Ten Commandments.
Attorney General
The race for attorney general has become one of the most closely watched elections this cycle after Ken Paxton opted to leave the job to run for U.S. Senate, opening up the seat for the first time in more than a decade.
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A crowded field of candidates is vying for the job and raising eye-popping totals. It’s become the second-most expensive race for political ad spending in Texas after the contest for U.S. Senate.
On the Republican side, state Sens. Joan Huffman and Mayes Middleton, former DOJ official and former Paxton aide Aaron Reitz, and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy are competing.
Public polling has shown Roy ahead, but more recent surveys indicate Middleton is gaining ground.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, for whom both Roy and Reitz worked as chief of staff, is backing Roy, while Reitz nabbed his own major endorsement from Paxton.
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The Democrats gunning for a chance to be the state’s top lawyer include former federal prosecutor and FBI agent Tony Box; lawyer, mediator and former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski; and lawyer and state Sen. Nathan Johnson.
Jaworski and Johnson have emerged as early leaders, but many voters were still undecided, public polling showed.
Comptroller
The fight to run Texas’ top financial agency features an expensive GOP brawl. Gov. Greg Abbott is backing his ally Kelly Hancock, who is currently serving as acting comptroller, against former state Sen. Don Huffines, an antagonist of the governor’s who has lined up support from grassroots activists. Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick is running, as well, with support from the oil and gas industries.
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Democratic state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt of Austin appears to be the favorite for her party’s nomination and faces former Houston ISD trustee Savant Moore and Houston resident Michael Lange.
The winner will have an outsized role in Abbott’s property tax-slashing agenda should he win a fourth term in office. They will also oversee the state’s new $1 billion private school voucher program.
Agriculture Commissioner
Three-term incumbent Sid Miller is battling beekeeper and entrepreneur Nate Sheets, who has the endorsement of Gov. Greg Abbott and several Republican lawmakers.
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Miller, a onetime rodeo champion, has won the endorsement of President Donald Trump, who made his choice known in a social media post after his visit to Corpus Christi on Friday.
Congressional District 31
U.S. Rep. John Carter of Georgetown is facing a crowded field of Republican primary challengers, including a one-time TV pitchman as he pushes for a 13th term in Congress.
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Carter has President Donald Trump’s “complete and total” endorsement.
His GOP challengers are: businessman Abhiram Garapati, who has challenged Carter three times before; Army veteran William Abel, who was among Carter’s 2024 opponents; Elvis Lossa, an Army veteran who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq; Steven Dowell, a former member of the Army’s military police; Vince “Shamwow” Shlomi, who hosted offbeat infomercials for cleaning products; and Valentina Gomez, a former collegiate swimmer who two years ago made an unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination for Missouri secretary of state.
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