An aide to Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas sent a text message to a co-worker last April saying that she had an affair with the Republican congressman, according to the co-worker who shared the text exchange with The New York Times.
The text message, first reported on Tuesday by The San Antonio Express-News, and then obtained on Wednesday by The Times, has thrown Mr. Gonzales’s re-election fight into turmoil just as voters in Texas have begun casting primary ballots.
The aide who said she had the affair died by suicide five months after sending the text, when she lit herself on fire in the backyard of her home.
“I had affair with our boss and I’m fine,” the aide, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, wrote last April 27, referring to Mr. Gonzales, a married father of six.
Mr. Gonzales would not comment on allegations of an affair. The congressman, who has at times broken with President Trump but has the president’s endorsement, is locked in a tough primary fight with a challenger to his right, Brandon Herrera. Mr. Gonzales accused Mr. Herrera on Wednesday of being behind the release of the text message.
The staff member who received the text is no longer working for Mr. Gonzales. The former aide said in an interview on Wednesday that he did not agree with Mr. Herrera’s hard-right politics, but decided to share screenshots of the text exchange with The Times because Ms. Santos-Aviles had been a friend and had been wronged by Mr. Gonzales.
Mr. Gonzales said in the statement on Wednesday that Ms. Santos-Aviles had been a “kind soul who devoted her life to making the community a better place” but that he would not respond to the allegation of an affair.
“I am not going to engage in these personal smears,” the congressman said, adding that he would instead “remain focused on helping President Trump secure the border and improve the lives of all Texans.”
Mr. Gonzales, a third-term congressman, narrowly survived a challenge from Mr. Herrera in 2024. His sprawling border district, which stretches from the San Antonio area to just outside El Paso, was drawn to favor a Republican, but in a year when the political winds favor the Democrats the district could now be in play.
After The Express-News’ reporting, the newspaper’s editorial board rescinded its endorsement of Mr. Gonzales on Wednesday, saying that it would make no recommendation of a candidate in the race.
Mr. Herrera, a hard-line gun-rights advocate and YouTuber known as the “AK guy,” seized on the publication of the text message and called on Mr. Gonzales to resign. He said that the allegation created a “tremendous potential catastrophe” for Republicans.
“If he prevails in the primary,” Mr. Herrera said of Mr. Gonzales in a statement, “Democrats will seize the opportunity to flip a reliable Republican seat blue.”
According to a screenshot of the text messages between Ms. Santos-Aviles and the former aide who spoke to The Times, Ms. Santos-Aviles appeared to mention a relationship with Mr. Gonzales in an attempt to reassure her co-worker, who was worried about issues at work.
The former aide shared the messages with The Times and discussed his conversations with Ms. Santos-Aviles on the condition of anonymity out of concern for potential ramifications for his family in the small community around Uvalde, Texas.
The former aide, who is now a political operative based in Los Angeles with at least one Democratic client, said he was politically in the center. He said he voted for Mr. Trump in one election but for Kamala Harris in 2024.
He said he had been working in Mr. Gonzales’s district office alongside Ms. Santos-Aviles when she and the congressman went to a cabin along the Frio River that belonged to the former aide’s family.
The former aide said the affair took place in May 2024, as Mr. Gonzales was preparing to run for re-election, but that it ended soon after, and the congressman was rarely if ever in the district afterward.
“After that we never saw our boss,” the former aide said. He said Ms. Santos-Aviles first told him about the affair after the November 2024 election.
Over the next several months, the former Gonzales aide said, Ms. Santos-Aviles became increasingly distraught. The two worked together for about two years and often traded text messages, he said.
On Sept. 13, Ms. Santos sustained burn injuries while alone at her home in Uvalde, which she shared with her husband and 8-year-old son. She was taken to the emergency room where she later died.
The chief of the Uvalde Police Department, Homer E. Delgado, said after the death that no “foul play” was suspected and that Ms. Santos-Aviles had been “alone in her backyard when the fire began.”
The death drew immediate scrutiny, and the local medical examiner ultimately ruled it a suicide.
In the months after, the possibility of an affair was widely discussed in political circles in the border district represented by Mr. Gonzales. Mr. Herrera made reference to the rumors of an affair last fall, which were reported by the conservative Texas news site Current Revolt.
Mr. Gonzales responded to the rumors during an appearance at a festival hosted by The Texas Tribune in late November, saying, “The rumors are completely untruthful, and Regina’s family has asked for privacy.”
Some members of Ms. Santos-Aviles’s family had also dismissed the idea of an affair, though her mother described her daughter as having trouble in her marriage and said she had been distressed before her death.
“They were separated, but she was hoping to fix things,” her mother, Nora Gonzales, said of Ms. Santos-Aviles and her husband in a conversation with The Times last fall. “She loved her son very much.”
On Wednesday, Ms. Gonzales, who is not related to the congressman, said that the revelations had reopened old wounds.
“It’s just a shame that they are using her name in this political arena,” Ms. Gonzales said of her daughter. “I just don’t think her death had to do anything with his campaign.”
Ms. Santos-Aviles’s husband declined to comment when reached on Wednesday.
The president endorsed Mr. Gonzales in December on social media, after the rumors of an affair were already known in the district.
“He will not let you down!” Mr. Trump wrote.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
J. David Goodman is the Texas bureau chief for The Times, based in Houston.
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