Key facts
- Rosenthal, an oil and gas engineer of 25 years, will serve a six-year term on the three-member commission.
- The commission regulates Texas's oil and gas industry and has had no railroad oversight since 2005.
- French won several Permian Basin counties, per AP election data cited in the report, while Rosenthal drew urban votes.
- Senator John Cornyn and other Texas Republicans denounced French over his September posts on X.
Jon Rosenthal, a Democrat, won a seat on the Texas railroad commission, the three-member state agency that regulates Texas's oil and gas industry, beating two challengers including Republican nominee Bo French. The report did not give vote totals or a margin.
Democrats had been shut out of the commission for decades, according to the report. The agency has had no railroad oversight since 2005 and regulates a multibillion-dollar oil and gas industry.
French, a former GOP chair for Tarrant county, drew national criticism in September after posts on X targeting south Asian American students at a University of Texas football game, suggesting their presence was evidence foreigners were displacing Americans. Senator John Cornyn and other prominent Texas Republicans denounced him. In June 2025 he drew rebuke for asking followers whether Jews or Muslims posed a greater threat to America, and later said there was no place for antisemitism in the GOP.
On the campaign trail French said he would eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion measures and curb the influence of what he called radical Islam and the Chinese Communist party in the state's oil industry, and advocated looser industry regulation. His family runs an oil company in west Texas. French won several counties in the Permian Basin, the heart of the state's oil industry, according to AP election data cited in the report, while Rosenthal's largest voting blocs came from Democratic-leaning urban areas.
Rosenthal campaigned on lowering utility rates, clean water and air, and guardrails around construction of new data centers, citing 25 years as an oil and gas engineer. In a post on X on Tuesday evening he wrote: "I am humbled and honored by the faith placed in me by the people of Texas, who have sent the message that the politics of hate and division do not win in the Lone Star State." He also thanked Republicans who, in his words, chose competence versus chaos. He will serve a six-year term.