West Texas rancher pours $2 million into Sarah Stogner’s underdog campaign for statewide oil and gas board seat

A West Texas rancher who has battled the Railroad Commission over abandoned oil wells on her property has poured $2 million into a dark-horse challenger for a seat on the commission, Sarah Stogner, as she looks to pull off a major upset in the May 24 Republican primary runoff. It is another striking twist in a race that Stogner, an oil and gas attorney, previously shook up in the primary when she released a campaign ad of herself riding a pumpjack nearly naked. Ashley Watt, who owns a 75,000-acre ranch in the Permian Basin, revealed to The Texas Tribune that she has provided the seven-figure funding to Stogner, saying it will be disclosed on a campaign finance report that is expected to be released Tuesday. The money is helping bankroll a substantial TV ad buy in the final two weeks before Stogner faces the commission’s chair, Wayne Christian, in the runoff.

“I am not a political person. I don't really care about politics,” Watt said in a statement. “But when an old Chevron oil well blew out radioactive brine water into my drinking water aquifer, ruining my ranch and forcing me to sell my entire cattle herd, the Railroad Commission teamed up with Chevron to work against me. “I’m tired of fake conservatives like Wayne Christian trampling on Texans’ private property rights, while lining their pockets with poorly disguised bribes,” Watt added. Stogner and Watt are friends. Stogner said they connected last year on Twitter and then Watt hired her as a lawyer. Stogner has been living on Watt’s ranch in Crane County after going through a marital separation. Stogner said Watt approached her in recent weeks and said she had done some polling — unbeknownst to Stogner — that showed she had a shot in the runoff. It was a dilemma for Stogner, who had been self-funding her campaign and proudly swearing off donations. But she said Watt eventually convinced her to “get your ego out of the way” and accept the money to have a good chance to win.