- Coming up on "Austin InSight," it's one of the most talked about political races in the country, the Texas US Senate race.

Could Texas elect a Democrat?

Plus, the latest of our series "Authentically Austin," taking you inside the new Waterloo Records.

"Austin InSight" starts now.

- [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally and James Gavin.

And also from Daniel L. Skret.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Hi there and thanks for joining us.

I'm Laura Laughead.

It's arguably the most talked about political contest in the country right now, the Texas US Senate race.

The names Talarico, Crockett, Cornyn, Paxton, Hunt, you've probably heard them a lot lately thanks to their near constant TV ads and some viral videos, including one moment from "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."

- And you know who is not one of my guests tonight?

That's Texas State Representative James Talarico.

He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers who called us directly that we could not have him on the broadcast.

(audience booing) Then I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on.

(audience laughs) - Early voting began last week and so far, more than a million votes have been cast.

In-person election day is coming up on Tuesday, March 3rd.

For a look at how this race is shaping up, we have Kayla Guo, politics reporter for "The Texas Tribune."

Kayla, thanks so much for being here.

- Thanks for having me, Laura.

- Kayla, we have to start with the Democratic primary race for Senate.

We have a lot of eyes on Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and State Representative James Talarico, especially after that recent moment on "Colbert."

All of this nationwide buzz is one thing, right?

But it's Texas voters who are gonna decide this race.

What does polling data show us so far?

- Polling has honestly been sort of all over the place in this race.

There haven't been a ton of public polls, but I think the most recent public survey showed Jasmine Crockett leading by something like nine points overall in the primary.

But the poll before that had the two of them head to head and the one before that had James Talarico ahead by several points.

So it's really hard to guess where the race is at.

I think just based on vibes, it feels sort of head to head right now.

I think both of them have had shifting momentum going into early voting, and like you said, we're a week into early voting and soon we'll know.

- And I feel like this is a surging amount of votes for early voting, like, for a primary election, which is historically low.

I feel like this is kind of unusual to have this many votes so early.

And now there is a TV ad running right now claiming that Republicans want Jasmine Crockett to win the Democratic primary, but what are you hearing about that from political insiders?

- I think Republicans have made no secret of the fact that they would rather run against Congresswoman Crockett.

Her reputation is, you know, this partisan warrior and I think that's why Democrats love her so much, is she's such a fighter for Democrats in the House of Representatives, and then I think to Republicans, they think that makes her an easier opponent to face in November.

So they haven't been quiet about that.

Notus, which is an online site based out of D.C., reported that some Republican firms had sort of baited Jasmine Crockett into joining the race.

She has said her decision's been based off of her own numbers that show that she can win, but, yeah, Republicans have not made a secret of their desire to face her in November.

- And now let's talk about the Republicans in the Senate race, focusing on incumbent John Cornyn, attorney General Ken Paxton, and Houston area Congressman Wesley Hunt.

"Time" magazine said of this race, quote, "Boy, is it ugly down there in Texas."

Cornyn does have a big advantage in fundraising and the so-called GOP establishment support.

But regardless, how likely is a runoff here?

- I think it's almost certain that this Republican primary is gonna go to a May runoff.

You just have three really well-known candidates who are fighting it out and it's really tough to get 50 plus 1% of the vote if you are any one of them.

So I think certainly we'll see this go to a runoff.

Just the question is who's gonna make that runoff and who's gonna fall off?

I think the common wisdom has been that Attorney General Ken Paxton will be in the runoff and sort of it's Senator Cornyn and Wesley Hunt sort of duking out to see who will be there with him.

- And they've all been trying in their fight against each other to claim, like, "I have the support from Trump.

I am the most MAGA."

But are there any hints of an endorsement coming in from the president?

- I think it was last weekend the president said that he likes all three of them.

He didn't wanna weigh into the race and endorse one of them over the other.

He sort of did the classic all of the above kind of endorsement that he sometimes does.

All three of them have been courting him for the endorsement.

It seems like it's not gonna come in time for this primary election day, but it's possible the president hinted that he might step in in the case of a runoff.

- There are other races on the ballot, of course, governor, attorney general, and comptroller, aka the state's accountant, even though we don't talk about that as much ever and it's not typically exciting or one most people ever pay attention to.

But Governor Abbott has endorsed Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock.

He's running against businessman Don Huffines, an Abbott opponent, and Christi Craddick, railroad commissioner.

Why is this race getting so much attention this time?

- I think one reason is, like you said, Abbott's endorsement in the race.

He really wants Kelly Hancock, who's a former state senator, to get in the race.

I think we also saw this race, which is typically pretty low profile, I don't know that most people know what the comptroller does, but I think we saw it burst out into headlines because a paper in New Mexico found that Don Huffines, who is sort of the front runner in the race at this point, had purchased Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced sex trafficker who died in prison, had purchased his ranch in New Mexico after Epstein's suicide, which raises a lot of questions of what do you wanna do with that ranch and why did this ranch, why did you buy it, and what does it say about you?

And so I think that brought this race sort of to the headlines and has been sort of a bizarre twist in the race.

- Indeed it has.

The timing could not be more bizarre.

And has he responded to any of those questions?

- He has.

He said he bought the ranch through an LLC during public auction and that the funds went to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein.

He said on social media after this all sort of bubbled out that he plans to turn the ranch into a Christian retreat and sort of give it a new life.

Though I do believe that New Mexican authorities are right now planning to investigate the ranch for possible crimes and evidence of crimes that were committed during Jeffrey Epstein's ownership of it.

- Indeed.

I'm sure more stories to come out of this.

Maybe this is a better question for after March 3rd, but once again, everyone is asking will the state flip blue in 2026 in any statewide race?

- I think if any, all eyes are on the Senate race and that's part of the reason why it's gotten so much national attention.

One, you have two really prominent Democrats running against each other.

It's a competitive race in a way that I think Democrats haven't seen in a long time in a primary.

And I think the idea is that if a statewide office were to flip, it would be the Senate race, and it would help if, I think Democrats think it would help if Ken Paxton were the Republican nominee, but that still has to be shaken out.

- Yeah, and we will be standing by to see how this shakes out, as will I think, shockingly, most of the nation.

Kayla Guo, politics reporter for "Texas Tribune," thank you so much for sharing your analysis with us.

- Thanks for having me.

(bright music) (bright music continues) - Meanwhile, two multi-billion-dollar transportation projects will impact the city forever.

We're talking about the I-35 Express Central project and Project Connect, the voter-approved light rail system.

But just as with any medication, side effects could be unpleasant for some.

People in neighborhoods near the widening I-35 are concerned about the potential changes to the locations of billboards.

Our local government reporter Sam Stark joins us now.

Sam, the construction will mean removing some billboards, but how will the city determine whether to put them back up and where?

- Yeah, so, Laura, the city is looking at easing restrictions on where billboards can go if they have to be moved because of those two transportation projects.

It's a tricky issue because our Austin already has pretty restrictive rules on where billboards can be located and some neighbors are worried about if the resolution goes forward where the billboards might pop up.

After years of planning, construction on the Interstate 35 Capital Express Central project has started in earnest.

TxDOT's multi-billion-dollar highway expansion project is slated to be completed in 2029 and will bring the highway closer than it was to some residences in central Austin.

- It'll be a lot closer.

They are putting up a sound wall.

There's been some big discussions about that, but it's gonna be quite a bit closer.

- [Sam] Bob Schmidt has lived in his central Austin home for 17 years.

Schmidt has mostly accepted the highway project he opposed is almost certainly moving forward as planned.

- We all hate it.

- [Sam] What Schmidt has not resigned himself to is what could loom over his house as a result of it, a billboard.

- If this billboard is moved to where they want to move it, it will make our property value go down significantly, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

- [Sam] For decades, Austin has tightly restricted billboards.

City code bars them within 500 feet of a residential structure and bans new billboard construction entirely.

After more than an hour of debate, Austin's planning commission backed a major change to the city's billboard rules.

It would allow some signs displaced by projects to move much closer to homes, potentially as close as 150 feet.

- To have that billboard standing up over there over our street would be horrible.

- [Sam] TxDOT said 13 billboards will be moved to make way for the expanded highway through the heart of Austin.

City staff were unable to answer how many billboards would need to be moved for Project Connect.

- None of us like billboards, none of us like having this debate, but we really wanna prioritize making our public transit possible.

- [Sam] In 1983, the city banned new billboards, meaning the almost 580 across Austin have been there since then.

If a billboard is removed, state law requires the owner be compensated three times the sign's annual gross revenue.

And beyond the cost, planning commissioner Adam Powell said that he suspects the city is also trying to avoid potential legal battles tied to forced removals.

- We're all having to sort through kind of a situation that has been pushed upon us, right?

- [Sam] Powell was one of two dissenting votes at the planning commission meeting opposed to the change because of what it could mean for nearby neighbors.

- This is bad for everyone, but what's gonna make it harder to sleep at night is the impact on residents.

These people didn't ask for a billboard in their backyard.

- [Sam] The planning commission's recommendation now heads to the Austin City Council.

- So it goes to the city council now and we're gonna be trying to talk to members of the city council to say, "This doesn't help regular people."

- Earlier this month, I did talk to Council Member Zo Qadri, who represents the neighborhood where Schmidt lives.

He said that he shares some of those constituents' concerns and that he's committed to learn more about the issue through talking with city staff and some more of those constituents.

- It's just another one of those growing pains, Sam, that people probably don't expect at first, but we gotta figure it out.

Thank you so much for your report.

- Definitely.

Thanks, Laura.

(upbeat music) - Change is always a controversial topic here.

Just ask anyone who's lived around these parts a few years about the days of old Austin.

But what about change for the better?

Many old Austinites and newcomers alike seem to agree that the new Waterloo Records store is just that, and just right for our "Authentically Austin" series.

It's the morning on a gloomy Friday and this record store is bustling with customers.

Well, correction, Waterloo Records, a place symbolic of why people fell in love with our city in the first place.

In this edition of "Authentically Austin," we're taking you to an institution that helped put Austin's music scene on the map.

(record player crackles) ♪ Oh-ah, oh-ah ♪ ♪ What did you tell them ♪ ♪ Video killed the radio star ♪ ♪ Video killed the radio star ♪ - [Laura] Video may have killed the radio star, but it didn't kill vinyl.

- What, are you shopping for records or something?

- I guess.

- [Laura] The neighborhood record store has been a cultural hub since the '60s.

- [Customer] "I Just Called to Say I Love You."

Do you have it?

- [Laura] With some maybe a bit snobbier than others.

- [Customer] Can I have it then?

- No.

No, you can't.

- Why not?

- Well, it's sentimental, tacky crap.

That's why not.

Do we look like the kind of store that sells "I Just Called to Say I Love You?"

Go to the mall.

(upbeat music) - Rhett Miller, he's a gem too.

He played our stage the other day.

I could go on and on.

It takes me hours when I actually am here as a fan to get through the record store.

- [Laura] This is Austin's neighborhood record store.

- Luda.

Oh my gosh.

I had this on CD.

That's funny.

Yeah, that's the thing about crate digging.

It's like music you forgot about but still have memories of.

- [Laura] And people have been reliving music memories here for more than 40 years.

- What Waterloo is, is the energy of the music environment of Austin.

- [Laura] Waterloo Records is an Austin institution recognized nationally for its collection, its staff, and its concerts, featuring the likes of Willie Nelson, Charlie XCX, and Nirvana.

But now the store has gotten its own remaster in this new location.

- People have been walking in and saying, "I know it's new, but it just feels like the old store."

You know, we moved all of the old bins and the team, most importantly, the team.

- [Laura] That's where Caren Kelleher and Trey Watson come in.

They were handpicked by the original owner, John Kunz, to take over as he took a backseat in 2025.

The business partners both have a history in the Austin music scene and beyond.

Kelleher is the CEO of Gold Rush Vinyl and helped launch Google Music.

And Watson is the CEO of Armadillo Records.

- With Austin, the music opportunities are kind of always knocking.

It's just whether or not you're listening.

- Waterloo was my neighborhood record store.

I lived down the street, would frequent it so often.

- [Laura] The land at the original Waterloo at 6th and Lamar was sold in 2019, so the store had to find a new home or close.

The search took years until they found this place just a few blocks away.

- A lot of stars aligned for this to happen.

- [Laura] The store officially reopened in August 2025.

They preserved the best of Waterloo while adding things like a podcast studio, a Dolby Atmos mixing studio, and yes, more parking.

- The scariest thing before we opened really that kept me up at night wasn't honestly the construction or any of the hiccups.

It was how was Austin gonna receive this.

- [Laura] They also have the only machine in the world to make playable 24-karat gold records.

- Somebody called it, was it "Texas Monthly?"

The Disneyland of music in Austin.

- [Laura] It's like a museum of artifacts of old Austin, from Armadillo World Headquarters posters to the stage, part of the original Austin City Limits stage from Studio 6A.

- Artists that perform on this stage can say they stood where Willie Nelson stood.

We had a artist the other day who came in and we told that story and he said, "I played this stage 17 years ago on the TV show."

- [Laura] You could call it a ballad of how Austin came to be the live music capital of the world.

And it doesn't get more Austin than Jim Franklin, co-founder of Armadillo World Headquarters, making a surprise appearance.

- What a special moment for me to have Jim show up, sign a record opening day of this store.

- [Laura] You were blessed by the Gods of Austin in that moment.

- Yeah, yeah.

And hopefully we'll continue to be.

- [Laura] But even in their new home.

- I'm glad that they stuck around.

- [Laura] You might think it's hard to stick around as a brick-and-mortar record shop in the Spotify age.

- 'Cause everything's in your phone, your photos, your music, your email, your everything.

- [Laura] You'd be surprised.

- Add on top of that, it's questions about is what I am experiencing online, seeing on videos or hearing, is it real?

Is it AI or is it real?

And you know what's real?

Holding a record in your hand.

- Almost half of people that buy vinyl don't even have a turntable.

- [Laura] These days, they're buying vinyl just to own it.

In fact, young people have been driving a resurgence in vinyl sales the last 10 years.

- You get a tangible item that you can touch and feel.

- Having a physical representation of music kind of shows outwardly that you actually care about an artist and wanna support them.

- [Laura] What's nostalgia for one generation is novelty for the next, and Waterloo is where they meet.

- I have vinyls from my parents and I kind of wanna get vinyls from this age to give to my children.

- [Laura] So the needle skipped the track of Waterloo's swan song and now business is just crescendoing.

- We've really received a lot of, you know, unsolicited accolades from the community that, "Thank you for saving Waterloo."

- It's exceeded our expectations.

How much the community has shown up means a lot to me personally.

- With Waterloo as the music lovers gathering spot, it's estimated there are more than 6,000 musicians and related industry professionals in Austin.

But the importance of the city's music-based identity impacts all of us.

These days, however, local artists and venues who are part of the city's DNA are now struggling to afford being here.

For more than 40 years, "The Austin Chronicle" has been uplifting the best of Austin's music scene with the Austin Music Awards.

Joining us with more on this year's awards and the state of the city's music scene, we have Carys Anderson, the music and culture editor at "The Austin Chronicle."

Carys, thanks so much for being with us.

- Thanks for having me.

- So, Carys, we'll get to the awards in just a second, but first, for some time, many artists have found Austin unaffordable.

Is this getting better, worse, staying the same?

We've also heard that Lockhart is becoming a popular destination for Austin musicians.

- It's true.

I do think we've seen a little bit of an exodus in recent years to, you know, surrounding cities, Lockhart, even Pflugerville, Georgetown, as people seek, you know, a more affordable place to live.

I don't know that it's been getting better per se.

I think the city has done all that they can or, you know, all that they would like to say that they can to kind of abet that.

They have, you know, grant programs, the Live Music Fund.

We've seen kind of some shifts in the city approach to that.

I think this time last year, the city kind of consolidated various, you know, arts and culture grant programs into one office.

It's now called AACME, which is, I believe, Austin Arts, Music, Culture, and Entertainment.

And so that's kind of been a new approach.

I'm not totally sure if we've seen results yet.

I think it's been taking some time for the new kind of office to get their bearings.

But, you know, there's been efforts.

But I think it's been really up to just mutual aid and the community members to kind of help each other.

- Well, and speaking of supporting the music scene and the community, let's talk about the annual Austin Music Awards.

Now, this is your 44th year.

Any big surprises or trends from this year's entries?

- I mean, I think every year is just a really good snapshot of that past 12 months in Austin.

You know, we are announcing the winners in this week's paper, but we have already kind of given a preview of what the show has to offer.

The show is this coming Sunday at Antone's, March 1st.

And, you know, we always curate the actual performance based on the poll to kind of show what we have, you know, going on this year.

So we've got kind of the big names.

We've got Ben Kweller performing, who also has his own sort of grant that he gives out to young musicians every year.

We've got a kind of a soul showcase from Tomar and the FCs, where they'll be performing with a bunch of friends.

We've always got like our little rock and roll showcase at the beginning of the show.

We kick things off with some high energy.

We've got bands like Big Bill and Gus Baldwin and The Sketch.

So we try to, you know, make it broad, make it really encapsulate how expansive our city is.

- And there's no shortage of music talent here.

Let's now run through some of this year's winners.

Carys, I'll let you do the honors.

- Okay.

Okay.

Well, I think someone I'm really excited about who I think unexpectedly kind of swept several categories is this band Die Spitz.

It's this, are you familiar?

- [Laura] Yeah, I've heard of it.

One of my friends has gone to one of their concerts.

- Okay.

They're great.

It's this all-woman pretty young punk grunge band.

I've seen them grow over the years from playing co-ops at UT when they were underage with Xs on their hands to going on tour with some really big names in the rock scene, Amyl and the Sniffers.

I think they have a show coming up with Foo Fighters, which is kind of funny, kind of cross-generational.

So they've swept, you know, Band of the Year, Album of the Year, Music Video of the Year, Song of the Year.

They've got a lot going on.

So I'm excited to kind of re-meet them on stage on Sunday and, you know, give them the honor that I think they deserve.

We've also got, I think, another really exciting award for everyone to kind of look out for is Best New Act.

That's our way of saying, you know, "Here's someone that we've been paying attention to for the last year that we think more people should pay attention to."

Sometimes it's kind of a under the radar, we're kind of, you know, on the ground, we have our finger on the pulse, and sometimes, like this year, I think it is representative of someone that has already kind of broken out.

It's kind of our way of saying, "We saw you last year."

And so this year the winner of Best New Act is this band Next of Kin.

They're this queer country supergroup.

They're very fun.

It's very kind of Shania Twain-y, Chicks vibes when I say country.

- I love that.

- [Carys] There's some pop influence.

But it's these three people that have been in the music scene for a while and they decided to kind of remind everyone that country isn't necessarily just a very conservative, straight-laced, buttoned up, straight, male genre.

So they're really exciting and they had a really big year last year as well.

- Well, definitely gotta add these artists to, you know, my Spotify and to what I'm listening to.

I've seen some of the videos from the Die Spitz concerts.

- They're awesome.

- They're awesome.

I never had so much FOMO when my friends, I'd never heard of the band and my friends were all there and I was like, "Okay, I really wish I would've gone."

And hey, there's an opportunity yet.

Well, congratulations to these winners and to all the others.

You can find the full list of awardees in the latest "Austin Chronicle."

Carys Anderson, music and culture editor at "The Austin Chronicle," thank you so much for sharing this with us today.

- Thanks for having me.

(upbeat music) - Before we go, we want to note the death of an American icon.

He was a civil rights leader on the front lines of racial progress and backlash for decades, including many visits to Austin in support of social justice causes.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson died last week at age 84.

He was present when Martin Luther King Jr.

was killed and filled parts of the civil rights leadership vacuum that King's death created, focusing on economic issues as America ended legal segregation.

He ran for president twice in 1984 and '88.

- When my name goes in nomination, your name goes in nomination.

I was born in the slum, but the slum was not born in me, and it wasn't born in you.

And you can make it.

(crowd cheers) Wherever you are tonight, you can make it.

We must never surrender.

America will get better and better.

Keep hope alive.

Keep hope alive.

(crowd cheers) - We spoke with author and UT history professor Dr.

Peniel Joseph about Jackson's place in history, including paving the way for Barack Obama's election as the first Black president of the United States.

- Jackson was unapologetically Black as a civil rights leader.

He was a reverend.

He spoke in the cadences of the Black church, but he was also somebody who was trying to connect King's legacy of nonviolence to a new, younger generation in the '70s and '80s.

He gave the country a great alternative in the 1980s to not just the capitulation of the Democratic Party in the face of Reaganism, but to really the presence and the figure of Ronald Reagan himself.

The biggest, most thoughtful interlocutor, so to speak, of Reagan during the 1980s was not an elected official.

It wasn't a governor.

It wasn't an intellectual.

It was Jesse Jackson as an activist who represented an alternative, and it's Jackson's presidential campaigns that gave all of us the imagination to envision a Black presidency.

- Certainly a significant legacy that Jackson leaves behind.

Finally, we wanna take a quick moment to congratulate the winners of this year's Les Dames d'Escoffier Austin Scholarship.

It supports outstanding women in the hospitality, culinary, and fine beverage industry in central Texas.

Some of the 18 recipients included Cynthia Romriell, founder and executive chocolatier at Cinful Sweets, Olivia Lombardo, coffee outreach coordinator at Mercado Sin Nombre, and Rocio Leon from Tozi Superfoods, who we previously had on "Austin InSight."

Congratulations to all these amazing winners who are continuing to make Austin an international food and drink destination.

That's our show.

Thanks so much for watching.

A reminder you can watch full episodes of "Austin InSight" for free in the PBS app or watch our stories on the Austin PBS YouTube channel.

We'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally and James Gavin.

And also from Daniel L. Skret.

(bright music)