Bo French Wins Narrow GOP Runoff for Texas Railroad Commission

Bo French declared victory over Railroad Commissioner Jim Wright in the GOP primary runoff, edging Wright by less than 2 percentage points and advancing to a November showdown with Democrat Jon Rosenthal. French ran on a hard-right platform focused on opposing DEI and Sharia Law in the agency and drew significant fundraising from oil interests and conservative mega-donors, while Republican leaders including Abbott, Patrick and Burrows backed Wright’s opponent. If elected, French would join the three-member commission that oversees Texas’s oil and gas industry with a multi‑million-dollar budget, a seat Democrats haven’t held in decades, and would confront energy-market volatility and regulatory questions, including wastewater concerns affecting production.