Bo French has won the Republican nomination to help run a little-known but influential regulatory office in Texas that oversees the state’s oil and gas industry.
French, whose campaign was backed by far-right Texas oil tycoons, received 50.6 percent of the vote over incumbent Jim Wright’s 49.4 percent in a primary runoff Tuesday for the Railroad Commission of Texas.
“I am deeply grateful for the support of TX Republicans across our state,” French wrote on X. “Our campaign focused on defending oil and gas, and putting America First—and that’s exactly what I will continue fighting for as we turn our attention to radical Democrat Jon Rosenthal.”
French will face Rosenthal, a state representative and engineer from Houston, in the November general election.
The primary runoff results are a change in fortune for French, a former Tarrant County GOP chairman, who less than a year ago came under fire from Republican party leadership for posting a poll on X asking whether Jewish or Muslim people posed “a bigger threat to America.” French eventually stepped down as chairman to launch a bid for the Railroad Commission.
French has called for Republicans to openly embrace Islamophobia and supports deporting 100 million people, a total that would include legal residents and citizens. Incumbent Wright drew the support of Gov. Greg Abbott and his fellow Republican commissioners, Christi Craddick and Wayne Christian. But the far-right and anti-incumbent trend in Texas Republican politics, exemplified by state Attorney General Ken Paxton’s resounding defeat of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in Tuesday night’s runoff, lifted French’s campaign.
As of Wednesday morning, Wright had not commented on the primary runoff results. Rosenthal wrote in a statement Wednesday morning that Republicans had “chosen poorly.”
“I look forward to conducting a campaign that will focus on the real issues for Texas energy production and Texas communities while forcing Mr. French to reckon with his grotesque racist, anti-Semitic, and Islamaphobic rhetoric all the way to November,” Rosenthal, who is of Jewish descent, wrote.
French’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Commission Shift Action, the advocacy partner of the watchdog nonprofit Commission Shift, criticized French in a statement earlier in the campaign.
“Commission Shift Action condemns Railroad Commissioner candidate Bo French’s stance that hundreds of millions of Americans should be deported on the basis of their religion,” the organization wrote. “This position is not only unconstitutional, but also relies on an all-too-familiar political playbook that divides Texans and stokes fears.”
The organization said French’s stance was a distraction from problems facing Texas, including “a growing list of orphaned wells that taxpayers are footing the bill on; radioactive waste hidden underneath subdivisions; and flaring from oil wells that is causing preterm birth and other health complications.”
Texas is one of the few states that elects oil and gas regulators. Railroad Commissioners serve staggered six-year terms. All three seats have been held by Republicans for decades. Wright was elected in 2020, also unseating an incumbent, and spent much of his time in office working on updating the agency’s outdated rules for oilfield waste.
French attacked Wright throughout the campaign, most recently calling him “Jihadi Jim” on social media. Oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks’ Texas Freedom Fund for the Advancement of Justice political action committee (PAC) contributed $375,000 to French’s campaign in the final countdown to the March primary. The PAC contributed an additional $548,500 between late February and May. Wilks individually contributed another $25,000.
Wright garnered contributions from oil industry PACs, including Chevron, Apache and ExxonMobil, and executives including Kelcy Warren of Energy Transfer.
French won by a wide margin in Harris County, which includes Houston, and claimed several counties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, including Tarrant County, by smaller margins. Wright performed strongly in South Texas, where he is from, and in Permian Basin counties like Ector and Midland.
The Railroad Commission of Texas oversees the largest oil and gas industry in the nation. Texas has more than 400,000 oil and gas wells, including more than 7,500 that are considered “orphans” that the state will have to plug. The vast quantities of oilfield wastewater injected underground in the Permian Basin have been causing blow-outs and disastrous leaks for several years, a problem that the agency is still struggling to address.
While the United States’ war in Iran has provided a boost to the Texas oil industry, Abbott warned during a campaign event earlier this month that French’s agenda would “wreck” Texas oil and gas. He went on to say that Republicans can’t assume victory in the general election. “All of these elections are going to be close in November,” he said.
Wednesday morning, Abbott struck a different tone when he congratulated French.
“Republicans are UNITED and ready to win in November to keep Texas, TEXAS!” Abbott wrote on his campaign X account.
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Martha Pskowski covers climate change and the environment in Texas from her base in El Paso. She was previously an environmental reporter at the El Paso Times. She began her career as a freelance journalist in Mexico, reporting for outlets including The Guardian and Yale E360. Martha has a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Hampshire College and a master’s degree in Journalism and Latin American Studies from New York University. She is a former Fulbright research fellow in Mexico. Martha can be reached on Signal at psskow.33.
