{"id":436897,"date":"2026-09-15T19:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T19:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/436897\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T19:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T19:08:12","slug":"republicans-criticize-racist-social-media-post-by-texas-member-running-for-office-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/436897\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans criticize racist social media post by Texas member running for office | Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

A senior Republican has called a party colleague running for office in Texas<\/a> \u201ca bigot\u201d over a racist social media post attacking college football fans \u2013 and said he is so outraged by the comments that he will vote for the candidate\u2019s Democratic rival.<\/p>\n

Karl Rove, who was former president George W Bush\u2019s longtime political adviser and is a respected Republican consultant in Texas, told a private event in Austin on Sunday that he could not support Bo French\u2019s candidacy for a seat on the state\u2019s railroad commission, the Texas Tribune reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead, he said, he will vote for Houston Democrat Jon Rosenthal over French, breaking a 32-year run of exclusively backing Republicans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His decision came after French posted on X a photograph<\/a> of students wearing team attire celebrating the University of Texas\u2019s rousing<\/a> college football victory over top-ranked Ohio State on Saturday. The students are all non-Caucasian, and French wrote: \u201cI heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn\u2019t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n

French could not have known the nationality or status of the students. According to Texas Global, fewer than 10%<\/a> of the university\u2019s 55,000 enrolled students are from overseas.<\/p>\n

His framing without evidence of the Asian students as \u201cforeigners\u201d \u2013 and attempt to denigrate them as outsiders \u2013 reflects a growing encroachment of formerly fringe views into mainstream Republican politics nationwide.<\/p>\n

But it drew condemnation from some in the party.<\/p>\n

John Cornyn \u2013 the establishment Republican Texas senator who lost his re-election primary to Ken Paxton, the Donald Trump-endorsed, scandal ridden state attorney general in May \u2013 attacked French on X<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Republican Party is better than this. We should all condemn this bigotry directed at our fellow Texans or we will soon find ourselves a minority party,\u201d he wrote, after French followed up his original post with an attempt to fundraise<\/a> off it.<\/p>\n

Even Greg Abbott, the hard right Texas governor, appeared to have reservations. \u201cThat is not my message,\u201d Abbott told Politico<\/a>. \u201cA selective picture of Longhorn fans celebrating our biggest home victory-ever actually shows a way that Texans unite. We all support our college football teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we win the state is the same way we win football games. We unite under the brand of Texas<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican state senator Lacey Hull urged French to remove the post on her own social media feed. \u201cThis post breaks my heart. I see college kids cheering on their football team. I see Texans,\u201d she wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The chair of the university\u2019s board of regents, Kevin Eltife, said in a statement<\/a> that he too saw only Longhorns, the nickname of the college\u2019s sports teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the same remarkable view I have at graduation ceremonies and anytime I\u2019m on campus,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI\u2019m proud to celebrate all our Longhorn students today and every day. Thank you for making us proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

French\u2019s unashamed approach to the scandal continued on Monday in an appearance on a radio show in which he labelled Republicans who have criticized him as \u201cless conservative\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe establishment raised and spent $7[m] against me in the primary,\u201d he told host Mark Davis, reported by the Tribune<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the people who criticized me yesterday were some of the same people involved in that effort. It\u2019s no surprise that the less-conservative people in Texas are the ones attacking me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Republicans in midterm races elsewhere have also come under scrutiny for extremist, racist or misogynistic messaging, or their backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Brandon Herrera, a Texas candidate for a House seat in November, was called out<\/a> for offensive sexual comments he reportedly made on social media using the handle \u201cthe AK guy\u201d, a rightwing alter ego.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Herrera, who has 4 million followers on YouTube, filmed himself<\/a> firing a gun at bottles of ranch dressing and, after they exploded, rubbed the condiment on to himself and declared that this would \u201cmake me irresistible to the fat bitches\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 2024, after he described a Nazi-era gun as \u201cthe original ghetto blaster\u201d, the Republican Jewish Coalition condemned him<\/a> as \u201ca goose-stepping extremist\u201d.<\/p>\n

In New York, Peter Oberacker<\/a>, a Republican state senator running for a congressional seat, was forced to delete a Facebook post paying tribute to his grandfather, who served in Adolf Hitler\u2019s Nazi military during the second world war.<\/p>\n

Oberacker\u2019s post featured a photograph of Ludwig Oberacker, who was killed during the Battle of the Bulge, in Nazi uniform. \u201cI salute all who served,\u201d Oberacker wrote, adding that he had debated whether or not to make the post.<\/p>\n

In Florida, Republican US House candidate Marshall Rowson was challenged on his ties to the League of the South, a white supremacist group.<\/p>\n

The online Talking Points Memo reported Monday<\/a> that Rowson marched with neo-Nazis at the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, at which Heather Heyer, a counter-protester, was killed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The outlet said it reviewed video showing Rowson and his now-wife arriving at the rally and being greeted by name by members of the League of the South members, which advocates for the secession from the US of southern states.<\/p>\n

Rowson did not respond to a request for comment after the Washington Post amplified the story<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A senior Republican has called a party colleague running for office in Texas \u201ca bigot\u201d over a racist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-436897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}