Texas GOP Leaders and Lawmakers Mum
on Bo French's Public Executions Pitches
Texas General Election Polls
General Election Rankings
Capitol Inside
September 28, 2026
Top Texas Republicans were biting tongues in unison on Monday after CNN revealed that the candidate who they're urging voters to elect to the statewide post of railroad commissioner had called in recent years for public executions for political foes.
CNN senior politics reporter said in a post on X that he'd been met with silence from Governor Greg Abbott, U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton and the Texas GOP in an attempt to get their reactions to the story he composed and the network published earlier today about RRC contender Bo French's statements on executing public officials and Democrats. The list of officials who French has backed executing on charges of treason include former President Barack Obama and a judge who's presided over criminal cases stemming from the riot at the U.S. Capitol five years ago on January 6.
The highest-ranking Republicans in Texas responded in a variety of ways earlier this month when French posted a picture of University of Texas fans that has been widely excoriated as racist and xenophobic. Some Republicans like the Texas governor seized on the French's posting of a crowd shot from the UT-Ohio State game as a stage to condemn racism and bigotry. Others simply gave the former Tarrant County GOP chairman a pass.
Karl Rove - a former top George W. Bush adviser who'd been one of the key architects of the Republicans' rise to power in the Lone Star State - announced in an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal that he'd be backing a Democrat for the first time in a long career as a consequence of French's antics. But none of the Republicans who are cast mates with French on the statewide ticket or the GOP candidates in down-ballot contests have pulled their formal support for the Republican in the RRC race.
The Democrat who Rove supports now for railroad commissioner - State Rep. Jon Rosenthal of Houston - argued today that French's history of backing executions for political opponents cannot be dismissed an innocent babble.
"Words matter. Character matters. Leadership matters," Rosenthal said on X in response to the CNN report. "What you see here isn't a single lapse in judgment or a context-free slip of the tongue, it is a clear, unabashed pattern of hate, bigotry, and extremism."
Paxton has shown no signs of concerns over French's loose-cannon style and reputation as a racist that the RRC nominee decided to flaunt after the statewide in which he's involved had been ignored for months. But French has alienated some of the moderate Republicans who've switched their allegiance to Paxton after backing longtime incumbent John Cornyn in the Texas Senate race before his elimination by the state attorney general in a primary runoff election in May.
French put the RRC race back on the map with the UT football game night photo post that he accompanied with commentary on accusations that the state's flagship campus had been overrun by foreigners and illegal immigrations. French offered no apologies after it became apparent that the Asian students in the picture were in the U.S. legally and had lived here all of their lives in many cases.
Public executions have been carried out by governments the most in countries like Iran and North Korea. But French would have a chance to become the first oil and gas regulator to lead a push for the execution of people in public if he beats Rosenthal in the midterm election 36 days from now.
French's UT football fan post opened the gates for a surge by the Democrat in the RRC. Rosenthal's probably of winning was rated at 52 percent on Monday on the prediction market Kalshi while the rival site Polymarket site listed French's chances of victory at 52 percent.
Capitol Inside currently has the RRC race on the toss up list in the rankings here for the general election on November 3. Democrat James Talarico is the favorite over Paxton here in the Texas Senate race, which is ranked leans Democrat.
more to come ...
| 
