{"id":200707,"date":"2026-03-12T01:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T01:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/200707\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T01:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T01:19:10","slug":"brandon-herrera-gets-trump-nod-for-23rd-congressional-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/200707\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandon Herrera gets Trump nod for 23rd Congressional District"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump on Wednesday endorsed Brandon Herrera for Texas\u2019 23rd Congressional District, days after the YouTuber became the district\u2019s Republican nominee amid incumbent Rep. Tony Gonzales<\/a>\u2019 withdrawal from the race.<\/p>\n

In a post<\/a> on Truth Social, Trump applauded Herrera\u2019s support for many of Republicans\u2019 top campaign issues including school choice, border security and protecting \u201cour always under siege Second Amendment.\u201d Herrera, a gun rights activist, had criticized Gonzales for his vote on a bipartisan gun safety bill in the wake of the 2022 school massacre in Uvalde, which is in the district.<\/p>\n

While Herrera garnered the most votes in the district\u2019s Republican primary on March 3, he did not win the nomination outright, pushing him into a runoff with Gonzales. Two days later, Gonzales admitted to a rumored affair with a staffer and withdrew<\/a> from the race. <\/p>\n

Herrera earned the nomination in his second run in the district\u2019s Republican primary. In 2024, he lost to Gonzales by less than 400 votes.<\/p>\n

Gonzales, who will finish out his third term in January, was mired by public scrutiny that mounted over an affair he had with Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, a former aide who later died by suicide. Several other politicians and public officials, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, had called on him<\/a> to end his reelection bid after he came in second in the primary. <\/p>\n

The House Ethics Committee is currently investigating<\/a> whether Gonzales \u201cengaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual employed in his office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump had endorsed Gonzales in the primary before his affair entered public conversation, but later omitted the representative from a list he reposted of his endorsees in Texas\u2019 congressional primaries days before the election.<\/p>\n

Herrera now faces 40-year-old attorney Katy Padilla-Stout, who won a majority vote in the district\u2019s Democratic primary for the party\u2019s nomination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2671,145,288,2424,27,29,28,2566,2860],"class_list":["post-200707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-congress","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-republicans","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tony-gonzales","tag-u-s-house-of-representatives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200707","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=200707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}