Democrat Jon Rosenthal won the race for Texas railroad commissioner, CBS News projects, defeating Republican Bo French after the GOP candidate refused to reconsider his racist, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic comments.
With around 93% of the votes counted, Rosenthal is ahead of the French by 52.5% to 45.6%.
Texas’ powerful railroad commissioner doesn’t run railroads, but rather regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, which accounts for more than 40 percent of U.S. crude oil production. There are three commissioners in total – the other two are Republicans.
Rosenthal is currently a state representative from Houston and a former petroleum engineer, who worked in the industry for 25 years. French is a native of Midland and had served as Tarrant County Republican chairman.
Although Rosenthal and French had differences on oil and gas policy, the main issues in the race came down to French’s controversial comments about immigrants, Muslims and Jews in what was already shaping up to be a difficult year for Texas Republicans.
Before the May runoff election, many prominent Texas Republican elected officials united against French’s candidacy, although he ultimately won the nomination. In September, French made national headlines when he posted that students at the University of Texas were a “problem” because they appeared to be of South Asian descent. In another post featuring the same photo, French said, “Just as body cameras unmask criminals, social media reveals how many Americans have been displaced by strangers. » Several students later came forward and said they were American citizens.
Shortly after taking office, Republican Senator John Cornyn, who had lost his primary to Ken Paxton, declared that he would not vote for French. Other Texas Republicans, including Karl Rove, said they would not vote for French.
French still raised more than $700,000 after the social media post about UT students. Rosenthal had grossed more than $500,000 during the same period.
Even before his primary victory, French had already posted anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim comments and declared in his campaign platform that he wanted to eradicate DEI politics, “stop the Islamic invasion of Texas” and “support life and the nuclear family.”
The last time a Democrat won a race for railroad commissioner was in 1990.
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