In mid-September, Bo French, the Republican candidate for an obscure agency called the Railroad Commission of Texas, went viral.
“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this,” French posted on X, alongside a photo of students, many of whom were of South Asian descent, celebrating the University of Texas at Austin’s football team’s win against Ohio State. “I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
His racism was roundly denounced by Texas GOP leaders like Sen. John Cornyn, who said they wouldn’t vote for French. And his opponents started using the comments for voter outreach and ad campaigns.
That opposition included 1.5°Climate Strategies Group, a donor network of hundreds of wealthy philanthropists, family offices, and institutional funders. The group partnered with a grassroots effort in Texas and spent $220,000 to mobilize Asian American voters through phone banking and “relational organizing” encouraging people to talk to their friends and family about the candidate’s racist remarks.
On Tuesday, French was defeated by Democrat Joe Rosenthal by a wide margin, ending the GOP’s 32-year stretch with full control over the three-member Railroad Commission of Texas. Despite its name, the commission is the state’s primary regulator of oil and gas infrastructure and gas utilities, which includes issuing drilling permits and limiting the flaring and venting of planet-warming methane emissions.
“Very few groups invested in this race. We were one of them, and we won,” Ning Mosberger-Tang, founder and president of 1.5°Climate and an early investor in Google, told Latitude Media. “I’m very excited, because this could have a huge impact, in terms of ensuring oil and gas companies are being held accountable.”
The strategy deployed by 1.5°Climate reflects how green donors, rather than making climate change itself central to their political organizing, focused on other messaging this campaign cycle: from the flaws and scandals by candidates they opposed, to energy affordability and data centers that are top of mind for Americans.
And it paid off. Up and down the ballot, groups like 1.5°Climate, Invest in Tomorrow Coalition — a clean energy-backed super PAC launched this year — the solar industry’s American Power Forward PAC, and the League of Conservation Voter’s super PAC had a string of victories in state and federal races.
1.5°Climate invested in 26 different races across states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and won in all but two, according to a list shared with Latitude Media. Invest in Tomorrow Coalition won in 12 out of 17 congressional races so far, with results still too close to call in districts currently represented by Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Eli Crane (R-Ariz.). All of the 12 congressional candidates the LCV’s Victory Fund put on its annual “Dirty Dozen” have been defeated, as were all the state-level targets. The PAC claimed victory in Colorado, as well, where voters shot down a ballot measure that would’ve made gas a state constitutional right. American Power Forward PAC had key victories at the Georgia Public Utilities Commission, which flipped to Democratic control for the first time in decades, as well as in Nevada and Texas where two Democratic incumbents kept their seats.
LCV’s Victory Fund dominated in these races, spending a total $125 million this cycle. Invest in Tomorrow Coalition spent $10 million, while 1.5°Climate spent about $5 million and American Power Forward PAC spent $425,000.
To be sure, these groups had a lot of factors working in their favor. President Donald Trump is widely unpopular due to his war with Iran and resulting high gasoline prices, as well as the administration’s coziness with tech billionaires advancing artificial intelligence. But after years of struggling to gain traction against the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the oil and gas industry each election cycle, green donors now have a winning playbook with broader appeal.
“This is part of growing up as an industry,” Tom Matzzie, chair of Invest in Tomorrow Coalition and founder of CleanChoice Energy, said in reference to clean energy companies. “It’s not that we did something wrong in the past. We’ve just hit a scale where we can mature politically.”
‘The sharpest knife in the drawer’
For the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition, avoiding talk of clean energy and climate altogether is by design. The group looked for races where its spending could change the outcome in relatively cheap media markets, and where they could take on anti-clean energy candidates with baggage to exploit. Most, like Rep. Boebert, were members of the House Freedom Caucus who signed a May 2025 letter calling for the full repeal of clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act.
“None of our ads, none of our content was about clean energy,” Matzzie said during a press call on the day after the election. “We went and found the sharpest knife in the drawer. That was the goal. How do we inflict the most damage with the money that we have available to us?”
Matzzie told Latitude Media that before the launch of Invest in Tomorrow’s PAC, the clean energy industry didn’t make any effort to hold politicians accountable for attacking it — and as a result, the industry was an easy target. That’s a dangerous place to be in Washington, he said.
“We want members of Congress to see that we’re willing to get dirty if needed,” Matzzie added. That includes exploiting a candidate’s personal flaws and conflicts of interest (such as stock trading), and in the case of Brandon Herrera — a YouTube streamer and candidate for the House from Texas — digging into the archives to use his own words against him.
Matzzie’s group made an ad compiling some of the most offensive things Herrera said or did on YouTube, called “In His Own Words,” including comments making light of veterans who commit suicide and a video depicting armed robot firing shots at cardboard cutouts of cartoon children. The group distributed the ads across streaming platforms like Hulu and YouTube, as well as the evening news.
Climate hushing
Meanwhile, the LCV’s Victory Fund took its cue from the success of Democratic governors Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, who both won their off-year races in 2025. Both campaigned on lowering utility bills and ensuring data centers neither shift costs onto ratepayers nor harm the local environment.
“Not only did Sherrill run and win on that agenda, but [she also] very quickly signed an executive order — in the middle of her inauguration speech — to build more solar and battery storage,” said Bill Holland, LCV’s vice president of state policy and advocacy. “She delivered on data center legislation this summer, with New Jersey trying to make sure data centers pay their fair share of utility costs and build clean energy.”
Many Democratic governors won on similar platforms on Thursday, including David Crowley in Wisconsin, where Democrats now have a trifecta in state government, as well as Hannah Pingree in Maine and Deb Haaland in New Mexico.
That said, very few candidates, and virtually none of the donors, emphasized concerns about the impacts of climate change. Their clean energy focus was instead on affordability and utility accountability. Asked whether this cycle showed that “climate hushing” in politics is here to stay, Holland said he’s always thought that whatever message appeals most to voters should be used.
“If an elected official leans in on clean energy, that’s awesome,” Holland said. “Our takeaway from last night is that our issues matter. Voters do care about clean energy and understand that data centers’ impacts on air pollution and the climate are significant.”
Nick Abraham, a spokesman for LCV, added that whether candidates say the word climate or not, the impacts of a warming planet were on the ballot. He cited rising insurance costs due to extreme weather, which shaped the California Insurance Commissioner’s race, won by the Democrat; water conservation issues, meanwhile, were critical to races in some Midwestern states and Utah.
“Climate is not a liability; it’s just not as punchy as affordability,” said Greg Rock, executive director of 1.5°Climate. “The fact is, clean energy is the most affordable form of electricity generation. So when you have the winning argument, most people will lead with that over a secondary or third argument.”
“I don’t think Democrats are running from climate change,” he added. “It’s just not the argument that is the most persuasive.”
Climate is not a liability; it’s just not as punchy as affordability.
Rock noted that the affordability message was especially effective in the down-ballot initiatives that 1.5°Climate mainly focuses on. They don’t have a ton of national attention or political spending, but have more of a direct impact on people’s day-to-day lives.
As for what’s next? After notching so many wins, green donors will turn their attention to ensuring their newly elected allies in PUC commissions, state houses, governors’ mansions, and Congress keep their promises.
But Matzzie has a message specifically for clean energy executives who want to keep up the political momentum. The industry is “massively underinvested” in communications and public affairs, he said, and should be spending between 1% to 2% of capex to rival the fossil fuel industry.
That could translate to a couple billion dollars, considering in 2025 the industry spent more than $277 billion across the U.S. manufacturing and deployment of clean energy, from solar and storage generation to electric vehicles and buildings — and be spread across state and federal candidates, PACs, lobbying, and issue-advocacy campaigns.
