{"id":193166,"date":"2026-03-06T11:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T11:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/193166\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T11:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T11:06:11","slug":"el-paso-will-have-new-congressperson-after-tony-gonzales-drops-out-of-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/193166\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso Will Have New Congressperson After Tony Gonzales Drops Out of Race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ephp_6-980x551.png\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A picture of Brandon Herrera on the left and Katy Padilla Stout on the right.\" decoding=\"async\"  \/>  <\/p>\n<p>SAN ANTONIO, Tx., March 6, 2026: On a social media post late evening yesterday, Tony Gonzales (R-TX-23) announced that he has dropped out of the race to keep his congressional seat which includes parts of El Paso. Gonzales has been mired in controversy over the last few months after one of his former staffers <a href=\"https:\/\/elpasoheraldpost.com\/2025\/09\/30\/update-tony-gonzales-staffer-doused-herself-in-gasoline\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">committed suicide<\/a> last year by setting herself on fire.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/civispulse.com\/pulse.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"970\" height=\"250\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/civis_polls_1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-895\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After Regina Santos-Aviles\u2019 death, rumors of an affair between her and Gonzales surfaced. Gonzales denied the affair up until Wednesday when he admitted it. Late yesterday, House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republican leaders asked Gonzales to drop out of the race.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday evening Gonzales posted on social media that he \u201cdecided not to seek re-election\u201d but will continue to serve the rest of his term which ends on January 3rd.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/gonzales_scrngrab267.png\" alt=\"Screengrab of social media post, Mart\u00edn Paredes\/El Paso Herald Post\" class=\"wp-image-1120\"  \/>Screengrab of social media post, Mart\u00edn Paredes\/El Paso Herald Post<\/p>\n<p>Credit: Screengrab of social media post, Mart\u00edn Paredes\/El Paso Herald Post<\/p>\n<p>Now that Gonzales has dropped out, Brandon Herrera will represent the Republicans on the November ballot. Katy Padilla Stout, who defeated two opponents last Tuesday with 52% of the vote, is the Democrat vying for the seat.<\/p>\n<p>The concern among the Republicans is the narrow lead they hold at the House. Now that Gonzales has announced that he has dropped out, the Republicans can focus on preparing for the November elections. Because Gonzales is serving the rest of his term, the Republicans keep a small cushion on their narrow advantage at the House.<\/p>\n<p>Election Day is November 3rd.<\/p>\n<p>Cover photograph credit: Brandon Herrera (left) for U.S. Congress website photograph and Katy Padilla Stout (right) also campaign website.<\/p>\n<p>Like Us and Follow Us On Our Social Media!<\/p>\n<p>Visited 26 times, 26 visit(s) today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO, Tx., March 6, 2026: On a social media post late evening yesterday, Tony Gonzales (R-TX-23) announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[27900,138,140,139,75429,6681,2566],"class_list":["post-193166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-brandon-herrera","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-katy-padilla-stout","tag-mike-johnson","tag-tony-gonzales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}