Speaker Johnson tells Tony Gonzales to drop re-election bid after affair admission



House Republican leadership has officially called for disgraced Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales to drop his re-election bid.

The scandal-ridden congressman faced calls to resign after reports indicated he had an affair with a staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, who later committed suicide by setting herself on fire. Gonzales dodged the allegations for weeks but admitted to the affair in a Wednesday interview, prompting an official call to step down from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as well as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), and Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-Mich.).

'Let's get to work.'

“The Ethics Committee has announced an investigation into Congressman Tony Gonzales’s conduct, and we urge them to act expeditiously," Republican leadership said in a joint statement. "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."

RELATED: 'I made a mistake': Tony Gonzales admits to affair with staffer who set herself on fire

Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images

Gonzales' primary opponent, Brandon Herrera, nearly unseated him in 2024, and the two candidates are currently heading to a runoff in May. Herrera holds a narrow lead over Gonzales in the 2026 primary and has embraced leadership's calls for his opponent to step down.

"I would like to thank Speaker Johnson and House leadership for holding Congressman Tony Gonzales accountable for actions that have tarnished the office," Herrera said in a post on X. "I’m looking forward to representing the district the way the people of West Texas have always deserved. Let's get to work."

RELATED: 'Really disgusting': Damning alleged texts prompt Republicans to call for scandal-ridden Tony Gonzales' resignation

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Gonzales has not yet confirmed whether he will step down from the race. His office did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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Scandal-plagued Texas congressman forced into runoff rematch — after barely escaping defeat last time



Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) faced a primary rematch against firearms influencer Brandon Herrera for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District seat on Tuesday — and will have to face him yet again.

Gonzales, who narrowly defeated Herrera in a 2024 runoff race, will once again battle Herrera in a runoff election on May 26 after neither candidate received more than 50% of the primary vote on Tuesday.

As of Wednesday morning, unofficial election results showed Gonzales with roughly 41.6% of the vote and Herrera with 43%.

'I think the voters in Texas are going to speak pretty loudly.'

The incumbent’s re-election campaign came under scrutiny in September when one of his staffers, Regina Santos-Aviles, committed suicide by setting herself on fire. Allegations soon surfaced that Gonzales and Santos-Aviles had been having an affair.

While Gonzales dismissed the claims as smear tactics, some Republican lawmakers called on him to resign after explicit text messages he allegedly sent to Santos-Aviles were leaked to the public in late February.

Gonzales has refused to step down, stating, “What you’ve seen is not all the facts.”

Gonzales secured endorsements from several Republican politicians, including President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.), Rep. Steve Scalise (La.), and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (Minn.). Trump reposted his endorsements on Friday, but notably omitted Gonzales.

RELATED: Tuesday’s must-watch primaries: The races that will determine if America First takes over in 2026

Tony Gonzales. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

Herrera, Gonzales’ most prominent competitor, received endorsements from several Republican members of Congress, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.), Rep. Eli Crane (Ariz.), Rep. Chip Roy (Texas), and Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.).

Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-Fla.) predicted ahead of the primary election that Gonzales would lose.

“I think the voters in Texas are going to speak pretty loudly. And I would guess that his days are numbered in Congress,” Haridopolos stated.

RELATED: 3 contentious Texas primaries that hang in the balance

Brandon Herrera. Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Herrera’s internal poll showed him receiving 45% of the vote, up 24 points ahead of Gonzales.

At the time the polls closed in Texas, 7:00 p.m. local time, bettors on Kalshi Markets gave Herrera a 95% chance of winning the election.

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Democrat holds a healthy lead for Virginia governor, but one scandal could throw downballot races



Early data indicates Democrats are currently enjoying a lead in Virginia's gubernatorial race, but one notorious scandal might cost them the attorney general race.

Polling has consistently shown Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger with a comfortable advantage over her Republican challenger, Winsome Earle-Sears, who has served as Virginia's lieutenant governor since 2022. Spanberger is averaging 7.4 points ahead of Earle-Sears, according to RealClearPolling, with some polls even putting the Democrat at a double-digit lead.

'Do you really want to elect that person as a law enforcement officer in your state?'

However, this advantage has not translated to the Virginia attorney general race, where Democratic candidate Jay Jones has fallen behind Republican candidate Jason Miyares.

Miyares' newfound momentum came at the beginning of October after Jones' leaked texts revealed he was privately fantasizing about putting "two bullets" in the head of a political opponent and about the man's kids dying in the arms of their mother.

RELATED: Exclusive: Steve Scalise was shot by a radical leftist — now he reacts to Jay Jones' murderous fantasies

Photo by Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post via Getty Images

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who himself survived a politically motivated shooting, warned that Jones' rhetoric revealed skewed judgment.

"Do you really want to elect that person as a law enforcement officer in your state?" Scalise asked in response to the texts. "Should other elected officials be accepting and condoning and endorsing that, or should they denounce it, which I did? Everybody should denounce it, and yet some won't for political reasons."

"I think it's a gut check for people's integrity," Scalise told Blaze News. "If you're willing to accept a call to violence because you're more worried about a political party advancing than you are worried about civility in this country, that's a real big concern for alarm."

RELATED: Earle-Sears' campaign bus bursts into flames days before election for Virginia governor

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

It's clear that extreme rhetoric is unpopular with Virginians. In the lieutenant governor's race, Republican candidate John Reid has hammered Democratic candidate Ghazala Hashmi's radical track record, including the time she boasted about teaching children books that were banned for containing explicit material.

"One of my concerns is violence. We seem to focus on sexually explicit material," Hashmi said in a video obtained by Blaze News. "I don't really care about that."

"We teach the books that other people try to ban," Hashmi said.

Even still, polling puts Reid and Hashmi within striking distance of each other. The latest polling shows Hashmi at a two-point advantage over Reid, although notably 7% of surveyed voters remain undecided.

"Ghazala Hashmi's words speak for themselves," Reid told Blaze News. "Any public official who says they 'don't really care' if children are exposed to sexually explicit material in schools is completely out of touch with Virginia parents."

"Parents deserve to know what's in their kids' classrooms — and when I'm lieutenant governor, they'll have a voice and a seat at the table."

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Exclusive: Steve Scalise was shot by a radical leftist — now he reacts to Jay Jones' murderous fantasies



House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who survived a politically motivated assassination attempt, reacted to the murderous fantasies of a high-profile Democrat in an exclusive sit-down interview with Blaze News.

Scalise recounted his brush with death in 2017 when a leftist shooter opened fire during a Republican practice for the Congressional Baseball Game in Virginia. Scalise and three others were wounded in the politically motivated shooting, but all victims miraculously survived.

'I know firsthand just what can happen.'

"I should not have made it through the day," Scalise told Blaze News. "God was on that ball field, and there were miracles that were performed."

"Turned out it was a left-wing nut who was motivated to go kill every Republican," Scalise added. "He just wanted to do that. And again, we've seen this over and over again. ... It's insanity. But unfortunately, it's become too prevalent."

RELATED: Democrat Jay Jones' scandals pile up: Criminal investigation emerges on the heels of violent texts

As Scalise noted, these ideologically motivated acts of violence have become commonplace in American political life. Just in the months leading up to the 2024 election, President Donald Trump survived two assassination attempts, with one would-be assassin getting within an inch of fatally shooting him.

Although these acts of violence sent shock waves across the country, these attacks are not limited to politicians.

In September, hundreds of students watched Charlie Kirk get assassinated on the Utah Valley University campus at the kickoff event of his college tour. In the days after the murder, law enforcement found bullet casings with various politically suggestive slogans written on them, including the phrase, "Hey, fascist! Catch!"

While these attacks were a sobering moment for many, some have insisted that political violence is a both-sides issue. Scalise knows "firsthand" this is not the case.

"Wherever it comes from, if somebody's advocating for or committing violence, we should all call it out. Doesn't matter where it's coming from," Scalise told Blaze News. "But it just seems like more and more we're seeing it come from the left."

"They just think if they tag you a Nazi, then that makes it okay to kill you," Scalise added. "That is telling certain people — it's like a dog whistle to say, 'Go kill that person.' And it's just what they say about their political opponents. It's insanity."

RELATED: Vance points to the leaked texts Americans really should care about: 'I refuse to join the pearl clutching'

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

"It's alarming. It's disturbing," Scalise told Blaze News. "Because I know firsthand just what can happen when people say certain things."

One of the most alarming instances of violent rhetoric coming from the left came when now-infamous texts from Jay Jones, the Democrat candidate for Virginia attorney general, were revealed earlier this month. In those texts, Jones fantasized about giving his political adversary "two bullets," insinuated that the man was worse than Hitler, and even wished death upon his kids.

"Do you really want to elect that person as a law enforcement officer in your state?" Scalise asked in response to the texts. "Should other elected officials be accepting and condoning and endorsing that, or should they denounce it, which I did? Everybody should denounce it, and yet some won't for political reasons."

"I think it's a gut-check for people's integrity," Scalise added. "If you're willing to accept a call to violence because you're more worried about a political party advancing than you are worried about civility in this country, that's a real big concern for alarm."

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