Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) dropped his reelection bid Thursday night, just a day after publicly acknowledging he had an affair with a former staff member who later died by suicide.
“After deep reflection and with the support of my loving family, I have decided not to seek re-election while serving out the rest of this Congress with the same commitment I’ve always had to my district,” Gonzales said in a late-night social media post.
Gonzales’ announcement came just hours after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House GOP leadership put out a joint statement calling on the Texas congressman to “withdraw from his race for re-election.”
Johnson and House GOP leadership repeatedly refused to pull their endorsement from Gonzales last week — ahead of Tuesday’s GOP primary for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District — saying they would “allow the due process here to play out.”
Gonzales’ exit from the race clears the way for YouTuber and pro-gun influencer Brandon Herrera — AKA TheAKGuy — to become the GOP nominee for the Lone Star state’s largest congressional district in the U.S. House. Gonzales and Herrera were originally scheduled to face each other in a runoff on March 26 after neither won a majority of the votes in Tuesday’s primary.
“I would like to thank Speaker Johnson and House leadership for holding Congressman Tony Gonzales accountable for actions that have tarnished the office,” Herrere wrote on social media in response to leadership’s call for Gonzales to drop his reelection bid. “I’m looking forward to representing the district the way the people of West Texas have always deserved.”
Herrera, 30, started his career as a gun influencer. He previously used his YouTube following to support Kyle Rittenhouse, the Wisconsin teen who shot three people during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest. He has also done several videos posing with guns made by the Nazis and in a a 2024 podcast appearance, he joked about the high suicide rate among veterans.
Herrera was recently endorsed by the Freedom Caucus.
In an interview with TPM, Herrera argued to TPM that successive waves of redistricting had made Texas’ 23rd Congressional District far more conservative.
“It used to be a very moderate district,” Herrera said. “We are more conservative than we’ve ever been.”
Herrera will face off against attorney and teacher Katy Padilla Stout, who won the Democratic primary Tuesday. Although a Democrat has not won Texas’s 23rd Congressional District since 2012, Tuesday’s Democratic primary saw as many voters as the Republican contest.
Gonzales’ exit from the race comes just after he admitted to having a sexual relationship with former aide Regina Santos-Aviles in a radio interview Wednesday evening.
“I made a mistake, and I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions,” Gonzales said during an interview with radio host Joe Pagliarulo.
“Since then, I’ve reconciled with my wife Angel,” he added. “I’ve asked God to forgive me, which he has.”
The Texas congressman had previously denied the allegations of an affair on several occasions and said the accusations were the work of Herrera.
Earlier this week, congressional investigators recommended that the House Ethics Committee look into Gonzales’ relationship with his former staffer. Congressional investigators reportedly found “a substantial reason to believe” that Gonzales had a sexual relationship with a subordinate.
“I look forward to the Ethics Committee starting an investigation. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to provide all the facts and all the details that lead to exactly what occurred in the entire situation,” Gonzales said during the interview when he publicly admitted to the affair.
Though the allegations of Gonzales’ affair — who is married with six children — were not new, the scandal resurfaced with new details over the past month.
An ex-Gonzales staffer provided a Texas news outlet with an alleged text message from Santos-Aviles in which she reportedly said she “had an affair with our boss.”
Later, a set of new allegations revealed text messages from May 2024 between Gonzales and Santos-Aviles allegedly showing the congressman asking his then-aide to send him a “sexy pic.”
Those text messages were reportedly how Santos-Aviles’ husband found out about the affair between his wife and Gonzales.
During his interview Gonzales claimed Santos-Aviles’ suicide had “absolutely nothing to do with” their relationship. Santos-Aviles died in September 2025 after setting herself on fire in front of her house.
