Republicans’ decades-long grip on the Texas oil regulatory commission is being tested in a neck-and-neck race after the GOP candidate’s racist statements drew widespread condemnation.

Republican Bo French, a self-described “MAGA conservative,” has a razor-thin 45%-43% lead over Democrat Jon Rosenthal in next week’s vote for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, according to a University of Houston poll.

Although the GOP has easily dominated every statewide office in Texas for a generation, French is in a dead heat after his inflammatory social media post deriding the state’s South Asian community drew attention to the normally obscure regulatory agency.

French’s now-infamous Sept. 13 X post depicted University of Texas football fans celebrating a comeback win against Ohio State. The image exposed “how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners,” he wrote. “It’s everywhere and far worse than any of us could imagine.”The post has drawn widespread condemnation, including from some fellow Republicans. The last time Democrats won a seat on the commission that, through a century-old historical quirk, regulates Texas oil and gas production, was 1990.

“The oil and natural gas industry is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the railroad commissioner election,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. “While they don’t want a Democrat to be elected, they also really don’t want to be associated with Bo French because Bo French is bad for any business that is public facing.”French, a Gen-Xer, private equity investor and former leader of the Fort Worth-area Republican Party, didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment via his campaign organization and He’s a graduate of the New Mexico Military Institute, an institution hailed as the West Point of the West that counts NFL great Roger Staubach and late hotel magnate Conrad Hilton among its alumni.

French has framed the commission race as a front in conservative culture-war issues and opposition to “militant Islamists,” even though the agency’s brief is to regulate mundane oil-industry activities such as wastewater disposal and well permitting.

French’s biggest leads over Rosenthal are among Texans 55 years and older, rural voters and Whites, the University of Houston survey found. Meanwhile, Rosenthal has the edge among Black voters, the 18-to-34 cohort, and urban residents.

French’s popularity has been dropping since late July, according to Texas Southern University’s Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center. By mid-September, his net favorability rating had slumped to -10 from +5 seven weeks earlier.

“After he made his pretty infamous tweet about the University of Texas Longhorn students celebrating at that great win” the race has drawn more attention, Rosenthal said during an interview. “The more people learn about my opponent, the less popular he is.”French’s latest campaign finance report also showed that contributions from prominent names in the oil industry have largely dried up.

The Texas Oil & Gas Association Good Government Committee and pipeline billionaire Kelcy Warren have been absent from French’s donor lists despite giving thousands to his GOP primary opponent Jim Wright, according to nonprofit Transparency USA.

Three days before the notorious X post, French posted that the Texas Oil & Gas Association had endorsed him. However, shortly after it landed, the association sided with Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows’ demand that French retract the post, saying it “crossed the line.”A spokesperson for the lobbying group hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

Still, French has garnered financial support from some big names in the industry, including Cody Campbell and John Sellers, co-chief executive officers at closely held Permian Basin driller Double Eagle. They each gave $25,000 on June 30, according to campaign finance reports.

French also benefited from the support of the Tim Dunn family as well as Farris Wilks, some of the most powerful Republican supporters in Texas politics.

Despite French’s former leadership of the Tarrant County GOP, Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, a fellow Republican, is endorsing the Democrat Rosenthal, saying the commission “is not a place for culture wars and bigotry.”Rosenthal, a state representative from the Houston area, is a mechanical engineer who worked in the oil industry for about 25 years, including for some of the world’s biggest contractors such as SLB and NOV Inc.

“Industry is by and large just staying out,” Rosenthal said. “So it’s not that they’re not supporting me. I’ve had, I think, very positive conversations with industry leaders.”