Austin, TX
Vice President JD Vance visits Austin for fundraising event
AUSTIN, Texas – Vice President JD Vance is making a fundraising swing through Texas. His first stop is in Austin on Monday.
Why you should care:
Street barricades started going up around noon on Monday, March 23. The area in front of the Four Seasons Hotel, between Red River and Brazos, provided a protective buffer zone for a fundraising event featuring Vice President JD Vance.
The street closures may continue until Tuesday evening. The FAA has also issued a flight restriction notice over most of downtown Austin until Tuesday night.
Why is JD Vance in Austin?
The backstory:
The dinner at the Four Seasons with Vice President Vance is described as the Republican National Convention fundraiser for the midterm election.
Reportedly, individual tickets cost $50,000, with couples paying $100,000 and special access for couples costing a quarter of a million.
“Trips like this are absolutely critical because the midterms are critical,” said James dickey, the former chairman for the Texas GOP.
Dickey explained what big dollar donors are expecting to get from this high-profile meet-up.
AUBURN HILLS, MICHIGAN – MARCH 18: Vice President JD Vance speaks onstage at Engineering Design Services, Inc. on March 18, 2026 in Auburn Hills, Michigan. President Trump has appointed Vance as Vice Chairman of a newly formed Task Force to Eliminate
“I know what some of those donors are asking, which is, are you going to continue to fight? Are you going to continue to follow through on your promises? And what I hope and expect Vice President Vance and the administration will continue to say is what they have done, which we will keep our promises, we will execute the policies that will lead to a better, safer, more prosperous America,” said Dickey.
Software billionaire Joe Lonsdale reportedly is hosting the Austin event. He and other wealthy business owners, like Elon Musk, have now made Austin a destination for conservative politicians.
“Years ago, trips like this to Texas would only have happened in Dallas and Houston, then quickly came to San Antonio and Midland…It’s only fitting that now Austin takes its place among those other cities,” said Dickey.
Dig deeper:
But this realignment of fundraising territory, at least for now, isn’t about the Austin ballot box, according to SMU political analyst Mathew Wilson.
“The reality is that there’s a lot of money in Austin. We know that there has been a lot of tech entrepreneurship and Austin is increasingly important to the fundraising plans of people on both sides of the aisle, not just Democrats.
Vance’s visit to Austin, followed by stops in Dallas, and later in Nashville, is in a way, a case of catch-up. Texas Democrats announced back in February they were launching a $30 million campaign targeting key races in the Lone Star State.
Wilson believes Republicans will be able to make up ground and will have enough money to compete.
“But certainly, I think the reason that Vance is here now is that Republicans don’t want to be caught flat-footed, and you can’t wait until the summer to raise this money. So the money is there for Republicans, but they have to raise it, and they have to make their case to their donors that they’re taking these races seriously, that they can win. And more to the point that Democrats are a legitimate threat. And I think that’s the message that the vice president wants to convey to Republican donors is we can’t take things for granted in Texas,” said Wilson.
This visit is also a big chance for Vance to meet face to face with potential donors for his expected White House bid.
It gives him a head start of sorts on other possible contenders, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Rudy Koski
AUSTIN (KXAN) – Trevor Goosby is a projected first-round pick in the upcoming 2027 NFL Draft. The Texas offensive lineman anchors the group up front for one of the best teams in the country and was named a preseason All-American by Walter Camp.
But his football career felt in jeopardy when he was in high school.
“That was kind of my biggest question,” said Goosby. “I was really nervous because would I be the same football player coming back?”
Goosby was born with a congenital heart defect and had open-heart surgery when he was just 16 years old. He wasn’t sure how this would change his everyday life, including his football career.
“Definitely a lot of nerves just because you’re getting your ribs cracked open essentially and getting your heart worked on…It was a scary moment. I remember driving up to the hospital super nervous.”
Goosby was able to recover and become a great football player. He said not only has he become a person in learning to fight through adversity, but it helped him as a player as well with improved endurance.
Now, the star Longhorn is giving back as much as possible.
Goosby hosted a camp in Austin to benefit the Children’s Heart Foundation. The organization works to fund research on congenital heart defects.
The offensive tackle is matching all donations up to $20,000 made to the Children’s Heart Foundation through the event and campaign.
“It means a lot to me just because of the heart condition I did have back when I was 16. That just kind of changed my life. I just want to bring awareness to that.”
The camp was at Hyde Park High School in Northwest Austin. Goosby spoke about what he hopes the young campers took away from the event.
“I think it’s just more than football. Football is a big part of what I do but it’s not who I am…I just want to show all these kids that I’m just another great guy and just someone they can look up to.”
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas is getting its first major new national stock exchange in decades, and finance experts say it could create new opportunities for Austin’s tech companies and startups looking to grow.
The Texas Stock Exchange is launching this week in Dallas, with live trading expected to begin as early as Friday. The exchange began operations Monday, and it says all publicly traded stocks should be available on the platform by the end of the month. Thousands of publicly traded stocks are expected to be available by then.
Ray Perryman, President and CEO of the Perryman Group, said the launch signals Texas’ growing influence in the financial sector.
“It really lets the world know that Texas is indeed a major player in this industry,” Perryman said.
Gov. Greg Abbott called the exchange another sign of Texas’ expanding economic reach, saying, “This is another step that expands the financial might of Texas in the United States, and cements our economic power on the global stage.”
ALSO| Past and present teachers are charged with improving student outcomes in Texas
Perryman said the exchange could provide another path for companies to go public and could help attract more growing companies to Austin and the rest of the state. He said the added access to capital could have ripple effects across the economy.
“It increases opportunities for firms in the area to expand, have access to capital, to be more profitable. That means they hire more people. That means they pay more taxes. That means they buy more things in their supply chains,” Perryman said.
Texas ranks second in the U.S. for Fortune 500 headquarters, behind California and ahead of New York. With the Texas Stock Exchange set to launch, experts say Austin’s startup community could see even more growth.
Perryman said Austin-area tech firms could benefit from having an in-state exchange option.
“They’ll now have a vehicle here in Texas that will be more efficient and less expensive to register on than the traditional exchanges,” Perryman said.
Perryman said the exchange’s success will depend on how many companies choose to list on it, how much investment it attracts, and how many additional companies decide to move to Texas.
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