The Republican candidate for Texas' oil and gas regulating body is under fire after posting a statement on social media that officials in both political parties are condemning as racist. Bo French, the GOP candidate for Texas railroad commissioner, posted a photo Sunday of a group of students of color at a University of Texas football game, with the caption: "Like body-cams exposed criminals, social media is exposing how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners. It's everywhere and far worse than any of us could imagine."
When asked about it on The Mark Davis Show Monday morning, French doubled down.
"We've talked about this in terms of DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion]. Well, that's what DEI was," French said. "DEI was discriminating against deserving people, so that these liberal bureaucrat administrators at University of Texas and places like that could select their preferred groups of people. Well, that is what is racism."
Like body-cams exposed criminals, social media is exposing how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners. It’s everywhere and far worse than any of us could imagine. pic.twitter.com/Fz6t0tojdg
— Bo French (@bofrench) September 13, 2026
Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was among the first to denounce French's remarks.
"This is the Republican nominee for statewide office," Cornyn posted. "Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized. This is how great political parties self-destruct. Sad."
Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Houston and Republican candidate for Harris County judge Orlando Sanchez followed suit.
"Those young people in burnt orange weren't a ‘problem,'" Sanchez wrote. "They were Texans celebrating a hard-fought victory. Judging fellow Americans by the color of their skin or assuming they're ‘foreigners' simply because they don't look like you is wrong, un-American, and has no place in our party or our state."
Last year, French resisted calls for his resignation as Tarrant County Republican Party chair after a post calling Muslims and Jews a threat to the United States.
"This is true to form for him,” said French's Democratic opponent, Houston state Rep. Jon Rosenthal. "If you want a more-reliable power grid and you want an agency that's responsive to communities and cleans up the environment, I hope folks will look at a career engineer [like me] differently than a career crap poster who just wants to make inflammatory statements on social media.”
No Democrat has beaten a Republican in an election to statewide office in Texas in more than 30 years. But Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political scientist who studies political scandals, said French may genuinely be in trouble.
"This scandal certainly has legs because it is part of a continuous narrative about Bo French," Rottinghaus said. "He has engaged in this kind of behavior before, and ... a lot of voters, because this is now a nationalized story, will be first introduced to him through this issue. That makes it more potent than usual."
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