Texas Republicans are scrambling after Bo French’s outburst
GOP operatives fear Bo French’s rhetoric could undermine the party’s recent gains with Hispanic and Asian American voters.
By Samuel Benson and Mike Lee
Texas Republicans were already fretting about slipping support with voters of color. Then Bo French got on X.
The Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner posted a photo of a crowd of University of Texas football fans, most of them people of color, saying, “The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” The Sunday morning comments, which appeared to target South Asian students, sent Lone Star Republicans into a frenzy, worried about the impact the rhetoric could have on GOP candidates up and down the ballot, including Attorney General Ken Paxton’s high-profile Senate race and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s reelection fight.
A number of Republican lawmakers, including some in tough races, quickly denounced the post as racist, as others squirmed with carefully worded statements. And GOP operatives winced at the potential electoral backlash — in a year that’s already looking tougher-than-normal for a party that has dominated the state for decades. Still, no one explicitly called for him to drop out of the race.
“His post on social media is profoundly unhelpful if his goal is to see Republicans win statewide races in a tough political environment in 50 days,” said Matt Mackowiak, an Austin-based GOP consultant who advised Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) unsuccessful primary campaign against Paxton.
Cornyn condemned the post, asking whether other GOP officials would “condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized.”
Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas), who is facing a tough reelection fight in a Hispanic-majority district, told POLITICO in a statement she’s willing to “condemn racism” wherever it comes from.
“All I see in that photograph is a group of kids celebrating a Longhorns win. What can be more Texan than that?” De La Cruz said, before taking a shot at her Democratic opponent, Bobby Pulido, for his past racial comments.
And Karl Rove, a longtime adviser to former President George W. Bush, called French a “bigot” at a private lunch event and said he’s voting for French’s Democratic opponent, The Texas Tribune reported. Meanwhile, state Rep. Jon Rosenthal, the Democrat running against French, said he had his best fundraising day of the cycle after French’s post.
French didn’t respond to requests for comment. He repeatedly stood by his comments since Sunday morning. During a local radio appearance Monday, he said he didn’t have any personal animosity against the students at the football game, but said that it is “not racist to point out that we should be favoring Texans over foreigners” and that his fellow Republicans are afraid of being called racist.
The divide emerging among Texas Republicans over the social media post — and Democrats’ eagerness to capitalize on it — show just how precarious the party finds its position this cycle. Texas Republicans were already worrying about losing support from Hispanic and other minority voters amid a tough economic environment and President Donald Trump’s unpopular immigration agenda. They need to hold onto or improve the incremental gains they made over previous cycles with voters of color in a fast-changing state where non-Hispanic white people now only make up 37% of the population. The stakes are high this cycle: Most polls show Paxton slightly trailing in a Senate race that could determine control of the upper chamber; Abbott appears to be in the toughest of his four election fights; and the state is home to several key House races.
“I don’t think [French’s post] independently and universally sours voter sentiment. But it contributes to GOP declining numbers with Hispanic voters particularly in the South Texas congressional races which we hope to win,” said Alfredo Rodriguez, a Dallas-based Republican strategist, who called on French to “stop the petty political theatrics.”
The blast radius of French’s posts was wide enough to garner carefully worded responses from the top of the ticket. Abbott said in a Sunday statement that French’s post “is not my message,” before noting unity “doesn’t mean that Texas cannot also lead in having the toughest immigration laws of any state in America and freezing H1B visas at our universities.”
Two of the students in the photo told the Dallas Morning News that they’re U.S. citizens. Most UT students are Texans — state law requires that 90% of each freshman class come from in-state — and there is no evidence that the students in the photo French posted are foreigners.
Some Republicans weren’t thrilled about Abbott’s response.
“This had nothing to do with illegal immigrants,” said Anang Mittal, an Indian American national GOP strategist, of Abbott’s comments. “These were students at a college game. They’re not H-1B. If they’re students, they’re on a student visa. … It’s pretty damn disgusting of Greg Abbott to say, ‘I condemn racism, but also, like, we’re keeping all the Indians out.’ That’s essentially what that tweet read to me.”Democrat James Talarico called Paxton out on social media, asking if he would follow Cornyn’s lead in denouncing French’s post. The GOP nominee replied that he condemns “racism in all its forms” — and then claimed Talarico had a “history of dividing Texans by race.”
Spokespeople for Paxton and Abbott did not respond to requests for comment.
Other Republicans were less willing to fully denounce French’s comments.
“I don’t really know the guy. I heard he said some not so pleasant things,” said Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), who said he hadn’t seen the posts — but launched into a criticism of immigration nonetheless. “I am concerned about the number of people living in this country, and we don’t even know who they really are,” he said. ”Shut the border down for 10 years, and then let’s try to figure out who we got in this country because we don’t even know.”
Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), who campaigned with Talarico in Houston on Sunday, said French’s posts came up in conversations with every Asian American voter he met.
“Everyone was talking about it,” Kim said. “Every single Asian American that I was with yesterday raised this with me. They were saying this is an example of, ‘Not only are they not courting us or engaging with us, but they’re actively demonizing us, actively being xenophobic and racist towards us.’ We need leaders that stand up against this.”
The political damage could also extend — potentially for years — to Texas’ small but growing Indian American population, the demographic group French appeared to target in his posts. Both Dallas and Houston have significant Indian American populations. In 2019, an event at a Houston stadium headlined by Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi drew over 50,000 attendees.
French’s comments could alienate those same voters, said Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican consultant in Austin.
“He just irritated a bunch of people, many of whom could be supporters and could be Republicans,” said Steinhauser, a University of Texas graduate. “I’d be willing to bet a lot of those kids that he was posting a photo of are probably, you know, their parents might be Republicans, or they might be Republicans, or conservatives, or independent-leaning conservatives.”
If French is elected, he would sit on a commission that regulates Texas’ powerful oil, gas and mining industries — which has little to do with immigration or social issues. But French, a longtime provocateur in Texas political circles, has a history of incendiary statements. Just last year, Republicans were calling on French to resign as chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party after he published an online poll asking whether Muslims or Jews were “the bigger threat to America.” He deleted the post and said he regretted it, adding “antisemitism has no place in the Republican Party.” This spring, he unseated a well-financed Republican incumbent for Texas Railroad Commission.
French isn’t the only politician in Texas who has made singling out Muslims part of his political brand. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has made “preventing Shariah law in Texas” one of his legislative priorities. Patrick didn’t respond to a request for comment. Abbott, Paxton and Cornyn have all called for investigations and other government action to stop development of a commercial and residential development being built by the East Plano Islamic Center, a mosque outside Dallas. And just last month, Abbott threatened to withhold funding from Dallas Fort Worth International Airport to block plans for ritual washing facilities for Muslim travelers in the airport’s terminals. There’s little difference between French’s attacks and the other politicians’ actions, said Yasir Qadhi, an Islamic scholar at the Islamic center.“It is the same mindset,” he said in an interview. “What we’re witnessing is really an unprecedented and increasingly brazen form of racism. It’s unfiltered, it’s unapologetic, it’s even stripped of even the pretense of political correctness. You know, this is a type of racism we’ve never seen in our lifetimes.”
When French unleashed a string of inflammatory social media posts in 2025, several GOP officeholders — including Patrick, the lieutenant governor — called on him to resign as county GOP chair. But Republicans now refuse to tell French to drop out now “because that might mean that there would be a Democrat elected statewide,” said Glen Whitley, a Republican former Tarrant County judge. “That’s the bottom line.”
“That’s part of my frustration with the Republican Party altogether: They talk about being Christian, but they get up every morning to talk about who they hate,” said Whitley, who still identifies as Republican but endorsed Talarico for Senate.
