{"id":445046,"date":"2026-09-23T11:02:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/445046\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T11:02:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:02:26","slug":"who-is-running-for-texas-railroad-commission-in-the-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/445046\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is running for Texas Railroad Commission in the midterms?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of the San Antonio Report\u2019s 2026 Voter Guide<\/a>. You can view all of the candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Texas Railroad Commission has a big job regulating the state\u2019s oil and gas industry but its elections typically fly under the radar.<\/p>\n

This year that changed when Republican Bo French<\/a> grabbed national headlines for a viral social media post<\/a> even many in his own party have decried as racist, causing some to abandon him in already unusual election cycle.<\/p>\n

French defeated longtime incumbent Jim Wright<\/a> in the GOP primary, and now faces a three-way general election against Democratic state Rep. Jon Rosenthal<\/a> (D-Houston) and Libertarian candidate Arthur DiBianca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After the Republican held up a photo of cheering University of Texas students as evidence the school is producing too many minority graduates, other Texas Republicans are seeking distance<\/a> from his campaign, and longtime GOP strategist Karl Rove penned a Wall Street Journal<\/a> op-ed saying he\u2019d vote for the Democrat over such \u201craw, uncut bigotry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosenthal is an engineer who worked in the oil and gas industry most of his career, but founded a liberal grassroots group after President Donald Trump\u2019s first election, and later unseated an incumbent Republican<\/a> to win a seat in the Texas House.<\/p>\n

French\u2019s family owns an oil company and he started his own career in private equity. His penchant for controversy<\/a> has long drawn the ire of elected Republicans in his home of Fort Worth, but voters there elected him county party chair<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Members of the Texas Railroad Commission serve staggered six-year terms, and Wright\u2019s seat is the only one up for reelection in 2026.<\/p>\n

Voter guide profiles are compiled using candidates\u2019 filing paperwork, campaign materials and past news coverage.\u00a0Click the links below to read more about the candidates.<\/p>\n

2026 candidates for the Texas Railroad Commission<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Bo French <\/a>
\n\t\t\t\tBo French worked in private equity and oil. He chaired the Tarrant County Republican Party.<\/p>\n

Republican<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Jon Rosenthal <\/a>
\n\t\t\t\tJoe Rosenthal worked in the oil and gas industry and represents Houston in the Texas House.<\/p>\n

Democrat<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Arthur DiBianca <\/a>
\n\t\t\t\tArthur DiBianca is a longtime Libertarian activist who lives in Austin. <\/p>\n

Libertarian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the San Antonio Report\u2019s 2026 Voter Guide. You can view all of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8519,27167,26901,82,84,83,8124],"class_list":["post-445046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-2026-election","tag-bo-french","tag-jon-rosenthal","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-texas-railroad-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445046","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=445046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}