Representative Tony Gonzales, a Republican from a Texas border district, faced growing pressure to resign on Monday amid allegations that he had coerced a sexual relationship with a staff member who later killed herself.
Mr. Gonzales sent “sexual texts” to the staff member, Regina Santos-Aviles, and appeared to pressure her into a relationship, according to Bobby Barrera, a lawyer for Ms. Santos-Aviles’s husband. Mr. Barrera said in an interview that he had reviewed the text messages.
In the messages, Mr. Barrera said he saw Ms. Santos-Aviles telling the congressman over text message that she didn’t “think this is appropriate.” And yet despite that, Mr. Gonzales continued to “coerce her to make requests of a sexual nature,” Mr. Barrera said.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Gonzales did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Images and descriptions of text messages between Mr. Gonzales and Ms. Santos-Aviles were published on Monday, including by the San Antonio Express-News, leading several Republican and Democratic members of Congress to call for Mr. Gonzales’s resignation.
“Resign!” wrote Representative Lauren Boebert, a hard-right Republican from Colorado, in a social media post that included images of the text messages.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican on the House Oversight Committee, urged colleagues to condemn Mr. Gonzales for “asking for explicit photos” of a member of his staff.
“As a woman, this is really disgusting to see,” she said. She added, “shame on you,” referring to Mr. Gonzales.
Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, also said Mr. Gonzales should resign immediately instead of “campaigning like nothing happened.”
Mr. Gonzales, who is facing a tough re-election fight in the Republican primary on March 3, has denied engaging in a sexual relationship with Ms. Santos-Aviles. He has said the affair allegations were part of a smear campaign by his top rival in the race, Brandon Herrera, a hard-line conservative, YouTuber and gun rights advocate known as the AK Guy. Mr. Gonzales has accused Mr. Barrera and Ms. Santos-Aviles’s husband of trying to blackmail him.
Ms. Santos-Aviles’s husband, Adrian Aviles, has denied any blackmailing and said in an interview on Monday that Mr. Gonzales “carries no remorse” for his actions. “I don’t think he deserves to be in the seat that he sits,” Mr. Aviles said.
Members of the Texas congressional delegation also began coming out against Mr. Gonzales on Monday, including Brandon Gill and Chip Roy, who is running for Texas attorney general.
“We need conservative warriors in Congress representing the values of Texans,” Mr. Roy said Monday on social media, backing Mr. Gonzales’s opponent.
“America deserves better,” Mr. Gill said. “Tony should drop out of the race.”
Just a few weeks ago, Mr. Gonzales appeared poised to win in a primary rematch against Mr. Herrera, whom he had narrowly defeated in a runoff two years ago. Mr. Gonzales, a relatively moderate Republican, had aligned himself with President Trump on immigration issues and received an endorsement from him, which he has featured prominently in his political ads.
“The conventional wisdom was that he would win,” said Jon Taylor, a professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Mr. Taylor said he was also a resident of Mr. Gonzales’s district, which stretches from San Antonio to the outskirts of El Paso and down along the border with Mexico. The race, Mr. Taylor said, has “turned absolutely upside down.”
The text messages have surfaced a broader question of whether a sex scandal can derail a political campaign in 2026, particularly in a Republican primary. The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, has been leading in polls in his primary for U.S. Senate despite his wife declaring last year that she was leaving him over an extramarital affair. Mr. Paxton is seeking to unseat Senator John Cornyn.
There were several aspects of Mr. Gonzales’s situation that appeared to set it apart from Mr. Paxton’s indiscretion, Mr. Taylor said.
“Maybe it’s because he’s having an affair with the staffer. Maybe it’s because the staffer committed suicide,” he said. “Maybe some people have figured out that there has to be some sort of red line when it comes to salacious behavior.”
The Republican speaker of the U.S. House, Mike Johnson, said on Monday that while he had endorsed Mr. Gonzales for re-election, the accusations of a sexual affair with a staff member emerged after that endorsement and needed to be investigated. Mr. Johnson did not call for his resignation. He said he had spoken with Mr. Gonzales, who promised to address the issue.
“You have to let the system play out,” Mr. Johnson said. “The allegations are clearly very serious, and Tony Gonzales will address it — I think he will.”
The House passed a measure in 2018 forbidding representatives from having sexual relationships with their staff members. And after extensive discussion, lawmakers in both chambers passed a bill to change how Congress handled sexual harassment complaints, which included speeding up the reporting process for staff members and holding lawmakers liable for harassment or retaliation claims.
Ms. Santos-Aviles worked for several years in Mr. Gonzales’s district office in Uvalde. A staff member who worked alongside Ms. Santos-Aviles said she had told him of the affair she had with “our boss” in 2024.
Shortly after the affair ended in June 2024, Mr. Gonzales stopped visiting the district office, according to the former staff member, who requested anonymity to avoid potential ramifications for family members.
Mr. Aviles suspected something was going in early June 2024, said Mr. Barrera, his lawyer, and began looking through her phone then.
“In reviewing the texts, it became apparent to him that there was some nonprofessional relationship, sexual texts going back and forth,” Mr. Barrera said.
“There is communication where she even questioned, ‘Why did you hire me? Did you only hire me because I’m attractive?’” Mr. Barrera said. “And he responds, ‘Well, of course not.’ And then the very next communications are sexually related.”
In September 2025, Ms. Santos-Aviles sustained burn injuries while alone in the backyard of her home, the police said at the time. It was not clear if her death had a connection to her interactions with Mr. Gonzales. Ms. Santos-Aviles did not immediately die from her injuries and told police officers that she had been upset over her husband’s new romantic relationship, according to police records cited by the San Antonio Express-News.
But Mr. Barrera said her emotional state changed in the aftermath of the interactions with Mr. Gonzales in 2024.
“She was in significant emotional distress,” Mr. Barrera said. “Her entire life was unraveling,” he added.
Annie Karni and Michael Gold contributed reporting from Washington.
J. David Goodman is the Texas bureau chief for The Times, based in Houston.
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