GRAPEVINE – A week after attacking a group of University of Texas football fans as “foreigners” who displaced Americans, Bo French said Saturday he was shocked by the backlash and that his remarks echoed President Donald Trump and other Republican leaders on immigration and culture.

At a “Take Back America” conference in Grapevine, French, the GOP nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission, renewed his defense of his social media posts widely condemned as racist, a characterization he denies.

“The outrage was shocking to me,” he said. “These are things that Donald Trump has been talking about. These are the things leaders in our party have been talking about.”

French’s comments Saturday widened his public explanations since Republicans and Democrats condemned him for posting a photo of jubilant Longhorns fans celebrating a fourth-quarter comeback victory over top-ranked Ohio State. The students were largely of South Asian descent.

“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it,” he wrote on X. “The problem is now obviously worse than anyone imagined.” In a follow-up post, he said the photo showed foreigners taking the place of Americans.

Two students pictured told The Dallas Morning News they are U.S. citizens. One said he is a Texas resident who pays in-state tuition.

On Saturday, French warned that cultural erosion threatened Texas and the country. He also said that in the past 40 years, no group had been “discriminated against more than the young, white male.”

Related: Bo French’s American vision: more deportations, less diversity. How one Texas Republican amplifies a culture war

Some in the crowd of about 100 clapped and stood while French spoke at the gathering hosted by the Eagle Forum, a conservative advocacy group founded by activist Phyllis Schlafly in 1972.

“It’s fair to say that Texas doesn’t look and feel like it did when I was a kid, and that’s not racist,” he said. “It’s not about people’s country of origin. It’s not about their skin color. It’s about the culture.”

Of the state’s roughly 31 million residents, roughly 2% are Indian and 2% are Muslim.

French, former chair of the Tarrant County GOP, later declined to answer follow-up questions from The News.

His Democratic opponent, state Rep. Jon Rosenthal, an oil field engineer, said he hopes voters will look beyond party labels in November.

“Folks across the political spectrum, from every corner of our state, are disgusted by the bold, outright, blatant racism,” Rosenthal told The News by phone Saturday. “We have a chaos candidate who spews incendiary, hateful tweets, or we have a subject matter expert who is qualified and serious about this job.”

Republican and Democratic lawmakers denounced French’s initial X post as racist, and many urged him to delete it, which he refused to do.

Some Republicans, including Karl Rove, former adviser to President George W. Bush, have said they will vote for Rosenthal over French. Sen. John Cornyn also said French lost his vote, although he said he has not yet decided whether he will vote for Rosenthal or leave the race blank.

Related: ‘I’ve been an American my entire life’: UT students answer Bo French’s disparaging post

French said at the conference that he is appalled and “deeply troubled” that any Republicans would consider voting against him.

Texas’ Railroad Commission regulates the state’s oil and gas industry and plays no role in immigration policy or religious practice.

Yet since clinching the GOP nomination May 27, French has tweeted more than twice as much about Muslims living in the U.S., mass deportation and a decline of American culture due to immigration than he has about the job he is running for.

After the uproar, French has pulled back on social media activity. Since Monday, he has tweeted an average of nine times a day – half of his output since late May. He has not tweeted about Islam or immigration since last weekend.

French has developed a reputation for this sort of rhetoric. He previously called for deporting every Muslim in the U.S. and also deporting 100 million people, nearly one-third of the country’s population.

Last year, he posted a poll on X asking whether Jews or Muslims posed a greater threat to the country. Some GOP leaders, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, called on him to resign. He did not resign, but he later deleted the poll and said he regretted posting it.

This time, Patrick has remained largely quiet. Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton said they condemned racism but have not pulled their support for French.

All three men are running for election in November.