Republican leaders call on Rep. Tony Gonzales to end his re-election campaign

House Republican leadership is calling on Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, to drop his re-election bid after he admitted to having an affair with a staffer — which would be a violation of House rules.

Gonzales faces an ethics investigation into the affair with a former aide, who subsequently died by suicide, and is running in a runoff race against pro-gun activist Brandon Herrera after neither won majority of the vote in Tuesday’s primary election.

The incumbent had been hoping an endorsement from President Donald Trump could help him secure re-election, but the affair allegations roiled Gonzales’ campaign in the final weeks. And now, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Steve Emmer and House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain are calling on him to drop out of his race after he admitted to the affair on Wednesday.

“The Ethics Committee has announced an investigation into Congressman Tony Gonzales’s conduct, and we urge them to act expeditiously. Congressman Gonzales has said he will fully cooperate with the investigation. We have encouraged him to address these very serious allegations directly with his constituents and his colleagues. In the meantime, Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for re-election,” the group said in a joint statement.

Rep. Richard Hudson, the chairman of the House Republican campaign arm, told NBC News in a statement he agrees with the call from leadership.

“Tony should withdraw from the runoff and allow the Ethics process to move forward while focusing on his family and serving his constituents for the remainder of his term,” he said.

In response to the Ethics Committee’s decision to open an investigation, Gonzales told NBC News in a statement Wednesday, “I welcome the opportunity to present all the facts to the committee.”

And he subsequently told “The Joe Pags Show”: “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’ office did not immediately respond to a request to comment about the new call from House GOP leadership to step aside.

After Gonzales’ former district director, Regina Santos-Aviles, died by suicide last year, Gonzales directly denied reports he had an affair with her. But the allegations resurfaced last month after news organizations, including NBC News, obtained sexual text messages the married congressman had exchanged with Santos-Aviles, and after her widower began publicly accusing Gonzales of being romantically involved with his then-wife.

Gonzales stopped repeating those denials last month, instead casting the allegations as politically motivated given the proximity to his March primary contest against Herrera. But Gonzales admitted Wednesday he had been romantically involved with his former aide during the interview with “The Joe Pags Show,” calling it a “lapse in judgment.”

The congressman had already been expecting a tough contest against Herrera, who pushed the incumbent to a runoff in 2024 and fell just a few hundred votes short of defeating him. But the affair dogged Gonzales in the race’s final weeks, with Herrera taking to the airwaves to argue he broke the public’s trust and a handful of his House colleagues calling on him to resign or cease running for re-election.

Now, GOP leaders are amplifying that call from a powerful perch, a call that further puts Gonzales’ electoral future in jeopardy and raises questions about whether he will even make it to the May 26 runoff election.

It’s the second time in four years a Texas Republican congressman finds himself facing calls to step aside in the middle of a runoff election thanks to revelations on an affair.

In 2022, Rep. Van Taylor announced he would retire instead of continue on to a runoff election after admitting he had an affair. The revelation secured former Collin County Judge Keith Self the nomination, and Self continues to serve in Congress until this day. If Gonzales decides to end his bid, Herrera would move on to the general election in the Republican-leaning district as the GOP nominee.

As Gonzales has pushed back against calls for him to end his bid, he’s framed his candidacy as integral to GOP efforts to hold the House, and has long cast Herrera as too big a risk for Republicans in their quest to hold on to this seat because of past inflammatory comments he’s made — Herrera has made jokes on his YouTube page evoking Nazi Germany, jokes he told NBC News last month had been “taken out of context” and examples of “dark comedy.”

“I’m the only one that can hold it, not only win it in the primary, but hold it in the general. And so, we start losing districts like mine, we are absolutely going to lose the House,” he said on “The Joe Pags Show.”

But Herrera has pushed back on those assertions, arguing that the affair has rendered Gonzales unelectable in a general election, warning in a statement last month that if Gonzales wins, it’ll give Democrats an “opportunity to flip a reliable Republican seat blue.”

Gonzales isn’t just facing electoral consequences. The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into the affair this week, and the Office of Congressional Conduct has completed its inquiry into Gonzales. The congressman told NBC News in a statement responding to the investigation that “I welcome the opportunity to present all the facts to the committee” and elaborated in the radio interview by saying he wants to “be able to provide all the facts and all the details that lead to exactly what occurred in the entire situation.”