Karl Rove, a former advisor to President George W. Bush, said at The Texas Tribune Festival that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s baggage is hurting his U.S. Senate campaign. 

Paxton is running against former state Rep. James Talarico, who has made concerning statements of his own regarding transgender people’s participation in sports, gender expression and the oil and gas industry, Rove said. 

“If John Cornyn were the nominee, this race would be over,” Rove said, resurfacing allegations the Texas Legislature raised against Paxton’s impeachment trial in 2023. “But when you got a guy who’s got multiple girlfriends, $200,000 worth of improvements in his house from a corrupt business guy for whom he does favors … and now it’s in the court of public opinion. If this were not out there, this would be a normal Republican versus Democrat.”

He did not say whether he’d vote for Paxton.

Rove lamented how the Republican Party has been infiltrated by “bigots” such as Bo French, the Texas Railroad Commissioner candidate who angered many in his party last week after posting racist comments alongside a photo of South Asian students at the University of Austin.

“My party is being infiltrated by people like Bo French,” Rove said, also referencing a meeting between Texas Republicans and a right-wing podcaster. “Nick Fuentes goes to Dallas and meets with a bunch of Republican leaders. This guy is a Nazi.” 

Rove made the comments just over a week after the Tribune first reported that he’d break three decades of exclusively supporting Republicans to vote for French’s rival, state Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, in the race to regulate the Texas oil and gas industry. 

In mid September, French posted the photo of students celebrating a football game, clad in burnt orange, suggesting without evidence that they were in the country illegally. The citizenship status of all the students in the photo is unknown. At least one student told the Dallas Morning News that they are a naturalized citizen. 

“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this,” French wrote on X. “I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” 

At the festival, Rove stood by his comments.

“How did the son of a bitch decide that they were foreigners?” Rove said. “I teach at UT. It’s an honor to do so … And (French’s) mind is so capable and beyond the normal understanding of things that he can just look at a photograph and know who’s a foreigner or not? Those were Texans by God.”

French is running for a seat on the three-commissioner panel at the Texas Railroad Commission to regulate the state’s oil and gas industry, which last year accounted for nearly half of U.S. oil and sends billions of dollars to the state’s coffers. 

The Railroad Commission also regulates a vast network of energy infrastructure, including natural gas facilities and pipelines. Regulators administer a half-billion-dollar budget. 

But French has scarcely discussed the issues he would regulate as commissioner if elected. Rather, French has made culture wars the cornerstone of his campaign, often taking to social media to post inflammatory and racist commentary regarding Muslims, Jews and LGBTQ+ people. 

Last year, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called on French to resign from his role as the Tarrant County Republican chair after French published a social media poll asking whether Jews or Muslims were a bigger threat to America.

Patrick then endorsed French’s rival in the Republican primary for the Texas Railroad Commissioner. But the lieutenant governor reportedly changed his stance after French won the primary runoff to be the GOP nominee.

Following the backlash, French doubled down on his comments and said Republicans who criticized him were “less conservative.”