Bo French Triggers Tempest with Photo
of UT Game Senator Condemns as Racist
Capitol Inside
September 13, 2026
Texas Railroad Commission hopeful Bo French ignited a firestorm on Sunday when he posted a picture of the crowd at the Texas-Ohio State football game in Austin the night before with most of the Longhorn fans appearing to be foreign students with dark skin and hair.
"I heard UT graduation this year looked like this," French wrote on X this morning. "I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined."
French, who'd sounded the alarms on a Muslim invasion here for several years as the Tarrant County GOP chair, captured the nomination for the statewide post when he ousted the incumbent Jim Wright in the primary runoff election with 50.5 percent of the vote. Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and establishment Republicans supported Wright amid fears that French could be an embarrassment for the ticket as a candidate with a penchant for inflammatory rhetoric when it came to race and Islamaphobia in particular.
French's social media post about the fans at the game the Longhorns won in a 24-23 thriller drew a swift rebuke from the state's senior U.S. Senator John Cornyn. "This is the Republican nominee for statewide office," Cornyn said on X. "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."
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows demanded that French pull the post with the photo. "You can oppose immigration policy without demeaning people because of their race or ethnicity — this post has crossed the line," the Lubbock lawmaker who leads the House said on X. "Delete it @bofrench"
French fired back in a post that called Cornyn a loser and blamed the situation that prompted the social media brawl on the senator who's a lame duck after losing the job in the primary runoff election when Ken Paxton unseated him.
"Our state’s institutions have been overrun by illegal aliens and foreign nationals because of RINOs like John Cornyn who have cheered for them over our own citizens," French said. "He and the other America Last losers are mad that Texas Republicans are starting to put America First."
The RRC race had gone virtually unnoticed throughout the summer with the U.S. Senate battle and governor's race pushing the down-ballot statewide contests out of the spotlight. French appeared to be content with being ignored amid the understanding that the GOP's down-ballot statewide candidates would fare about the same with the top of the ticket driving their success or failure.
But French found a way to put the RRC race that pits French against Democrat Jon Rosenthal - a state representative from Houston with the photo of the foreign students at Memorial Stadium where UT came from 20 points behind to beat the nation's number one rated team in the Buckeyes.
Paxton and Abbott, who are facing Democrats James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa respectively on the fall ballot, could find themselves being asked to weigh in on the French insinuations about an incursion of foreign students at the state's flagship campus in Austin.
Patrick, who's doing battle with Democrat Vikki Goodwin in the general election, called at one point for French to resign as the Tarrant GOP leader as a result of incendiary comments. But French brushed off the Senate president's criticism and held his ground.
more to come ...
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