After Admitting Affair With Staffer, Texas Rep Faces GOP Calls To End Re-Election Bid

Republican Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales admitted to the public for the first time on Wednesday that he had an affair with his former staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, who committed suicide last year.

As more revelations about the affair surfaced, Gonzales faced calls to either resign or drop out of the 2026 election from a growing number of colleagues. Now, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other Republican House leaders are also calling on him to end his re-election bid.

“I made a mistake,” Gonzales told conservative radio host Joe Pags. “And I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions. Since then, I have reconciled with my wife, Angel. I have asked God to forgive me, which he has, and my faith is as strong as ever.”

Speaker Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), and GOP Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) released a statement on Thursday urging Gonzales drop out of the 2026 race. Gonzales also faces a House Ethics Committee investigation.

“We have encouraged him to address these very serious allegations directly with his constituents and his colleagues,” the GOP leaders said. “In the meantime, Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for reelection.”

Gonzales advanced to a run-off election in the GOP primary for Texas’ 23rd congressional district on Tuesday. He now faces YouTuber and firearms manufacturer Brandon Herrera in the May run-off election. Herrera received 43.3% of the vote to Gonzales’ 41.7% on Tuesday night.

Santos-Aviles, a 35-year-old married mother, committed suicide last September by dousing herself in accelerant and setting herself on fire at her Uvalde, Texas, home. In the Uvalde Police Department report on the incident, one officer stated that after first responders arrived on the scene and began aiding Santos-Aviles, she told them that she set herself on fire because her husband was having an affair with her best friend.

Gonzales said on Wednesday that his affair with Santos-Aviles ended in the summer of 2024, more than a year before Santos-Aviles committed suicide. Text messages posted by the San Antonio Express-News last month show Gonzales allegedly making sexual requests to Santos-Aviles, including asking her to send him a “sexy” photo of herself and asking what her “favorite position” is.

One message shows the congressman allegedly telling Santos-Aviles about his sexual fantasy before the staffer replies, “This is too far, Tony.” In another message, she wrote, “This is going too far boss. So how long have you thought I was this hot?”

After reports of the text scandal spread, Gonzales told CNN, “I am not going to resign. I work every day for the people of Texas … and there will be an opportunity for all the details and all the facts to come out. What you’ve seen is not all the facts.”

Gonzales reiterated on Wednesday that there was “a lot more” information that would come out soon, and he declined to address whether the sexual text messages that he allegedly sent to Santos-Aviles were genuine.

“I will say there is a whole lot more to the story, a lot more that isn’t out there,” he told Pags.

The Texas congressman also suggested that immediately following Santos-Aviles’ death, he was blackmailed by the staffer’s husband.

“Within hours [of Santos-Aviles’ death], her estranged husband reached out to our office and asked about her death benefits and how he could gain access to her retirement fund,” Gonzales said. “This woman had just had a horrific tragedy. … It was eerie, it was creepy.”

“A few months later, his criminal defense attorney … reaches out and essentially asks me for money, or else,” Gonzales added. “They asked for $300,000.”

Santos-Aviles’ husband, Adrian Aviles, has pushed back against Gonzales’ accusations of blackmail and said that he shared his deceased wife’s text messages “because I don’t want to be called a liar and don’t want her to be called a liar.”

“I also want to show proof to everybody the type of person that he is. He’s a predator. He took advantage of a very vulnerable woman,” Adrian Aviles added.