Barry Heard

🚨Texas voters delivered a decisive rejection of MAGA extremism by defeating Bo French, the Republican candidate for Railroad Commissioner who openly called for deporting Native Americans. French, a former Tarrant County GOP chair, posted that Indigenous people were “third world savages” who should be added to a mass deportation list, language that targeted the original inhabitants of this land. He also faced backlash for racist attacks on Indian-American students. Democrat Jon Rosenthal, a state representative and oil-field engineer, defeated French roughly 53% to 45%—a clear win in a state where Republicans have dominated the powerful energy regulator for decades. This marks the first Democratic victory on the Texas Railroad Commission since the 1990s, breaking a long GOP lock on an agency that oversees the state’s massive oil and gas industry. French’s campaign embodied the nativist excesses of Trump-era racist politics: conspiracy-laden rhetoric, and open hostility toward communities of color. Voters saw through it. In a night of Democratic gains across Texas and the country, French’s loss shows that even conservative-leaning electorates will punish candidates who traffic in raw bigotry over basic governance. The politics of hate did not carry the day.