A top Republican operative has announced that the bigotry creeping through conservative politics is why he is breaking with his own party’s nominee in a marquee statewide race.
Karl Rove, the veteran GOP strategist who helped steer George W. Bush to two presidential wins, previously said he would vote for Democrat Jon Rosenthal over Republican Bo French in the race for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, the state agency that regulates oil and gas production.
It comes after an X post from French, a University of Texas graduate, who reacted to photos of students from his own college celebrating a football win by suggesting the crowd, made up largely of people of color, reflected a broader problem.
“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this,” French wrote. “I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
Now, in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Rove has laid out why he’s crossing party lines for only the second time in his life.
He said: “The GOP has a growing number of Bo Frenches—and not only in Texas,” Rove wrote. “Conservatism and the party it dominates have an increasing number of bigoted advocates of a ‘heritage America’ composed of white descendants of the original European settlers.
“There are ‘just asking questions’ Jew-haters, misogynists who worship hypermasculinity, conspiracy nuts seeking clicks for profit, and religious bigots who won’t differentiate between Muslim terrorists and Muslim American patriots.”
He continued: “These people are diminishing the Republican Party, not building it. I’ll have no part of it. This November, I’ll vote for only the second Democrat in my life. The first was Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock in 1994, because I thought he would work with Republicans. The second will be Mr. French’s opponent, Jon Rosenthal. The GOP’s stables need a cleaning. This is a good place to start.”
French faced swift bipartisan blowback over his post, including from his own state’s Republican Senator John Cornyn. But French refused to back down, telling a conservative radio audience that his critics were simply “less conservative people.”
Rove has been drifting from President Donald Trump throughout his second term, criticizing the administration’s midterm strategy and its failed peace effort in Iran. He wrote in the Journal earlier this month that Trump’s heavy spending on self-promotional television ads and his relentless rallies in battleground states might actually be hurting the president’s own party.
Trump wasted no time firing back once the split over French became public, posting his response on Truth Social. “Karl Rove is so bad for the Republican Party, and completely wrong so often,” Trump wrote. “He suffers from a major case of Trump Derangement Syndrome primarily because, for almost 10 years, I beat back and won against so many of the people and things that he wanted and espoused.”
