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
Mountaineers non-competitive in 94-58 loss at Texas – WV MetroNews
Texas came out firing from the outset of Saturday’s contest with West Virginia at the Moody Center.
The Mountaineers never countered back, and as a result, remained winless away from home this season while suffering the program’s most lopsided loss in nine years.
Dylan Disu scored 19 of his game-high 27 points in the first half on 7-for-7 shooting with five three-pointers, helping the Longhorns build a 25-point advantage en route their 94-58 victory.
Texas (16-8, 5-6) made 23-of-35 field goals in the first half, including half of its 16 three-point attempts.
“There’s a lot of things we can point at defensively that we didn’t do correct,” WVU interim head coach Josh Eilert said. “Their game plan right off the bat was to put [WVU center Jesse Edwards] in a ball screen and pick and pop with Disu. Credit to him. He was 4 for 4 from three to start the game. He knocked down shots and once you see a couple go down, we’ve seen it ourselves in the Kansas game, the floodgates can open for you.”
Outside of a 2-0 lead off an Edwards layup on the game’s first possession, West Virginia (8-15, 3-7) never led in what marked its most lopsided defeat since a 39-point season-ending loss to Kentucky in March 2015.
Two Disu triples and one from Max Abmas on three consecutive possessions allowed the Longhorns to turn a two-point advantage into an 18-7 lead in a matter of 49 seconds.
Disu made another triple with 9:26 left in the half to give Texas a 32-14 lead. He was from alone in doing damage to the Mountaineers over the first 20 minutes, as teammate Chendall Weaver was 4 for 4 with nine points and Dillion Mitchell added 10 on 5-for-7 shooting.
Leading 55-30 at halftime, Texas had 17 assists and two turnovers. The Mountaineers had 10 turnovers and five assists, though they made half of their field-goal attempts (12 for 24) on the strength of Edwards’ 13 points on 5-for-6 shooting.
Disu picked up where he left off to start the second half by connecting from long range and the Longhorns gained their first 30-point advantage to 70-40 when Abmas made his second of consecutive triples.
Texas’ largest lead was 43 at 92-49 before the Mountaineers ran off nine of the final 11 points.
The Mountaineers lost their final two trips to Austin while the Longhorns were members of the Big 12 by a total of 70 points.
“Really felt like it was deja vu here looking at this box score in this arena,” Eilert said. “Like I told the guys in the locker room, one way or another, I didn’t have you all ready to play and that’s on me.”
Disu finished 10 for 16 and made 7-of-10 threes. Abmas added five triples and 19 points, while Tyrese Hunter scored 19 as well on 8-of-12 shooting, including 3 of 4 from deep.
Weaver added 13 points on five shots and Mitchell scored 12 to go with a team-high eight rebounds.
The Longhorns’ starting five combined for all but four of the team’s points.
Texas finished with 28 assists and five turnovers.
“That’s the game right there. They were 100 percent the aggressor,” Eilert said. “They took it to us. They were physical with us and understand we struggle with that. That was their game plan and they executed to a T.”
Edwards led the Mountaineers with 17 points and nine rebounds.
“He was good,” Eilert said. “We tried to establish a presence inside.”
Noah Farrakhan added 11 points and eight boards.
Although WVU finished with a 37-36 rebounding advantage, the Mountaineers scored six points off turnovers to the Longhorns’ 29.
West Virginia, which has lost its first five Big 12 road games by an average of 20.2 points, is back in action Monday at TCU.
“We have to learn quick, but flush it and understand TCU is No. 1 in the country in fast break points,” Eilert said. “They really get downhill and turn people over. Texas doesn’t really turn you over much, but they did tonight. If we turn it over in Fort Worth, it could be ugly. I’ll take it on the chin and we weren’t ready to play. That’s on us.”
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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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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