Voters in Texas’s 23rd District are rethinking a Republican incumbent after disturbing new details emerged about an alleged office affair and the tragic death of a staffer who set herself on fire. A series of Trafalgar Group polls show that awareness of the episode erodes support among likely GOP primary voters, shifting momentum toward a challenger. This report lays out what voters learned, how they reacted, and what the numbers look like as the primary race tightens.
Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales finds his standing with GOP primary voters under pressure after reports surfaced that a regional staffer in his office took her own life by self-immolation. The staffer, identified as Regina Santos-Aviles, reportedly set herself on fire in her Uvalde backyard in September and later died at a hospital. Multiple accounts in local reporting have tied her death to an alleged relationship with the congressman, and that revelation has prompted voters to ask hard questions about judgment and conduct.
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A Trafalgar Group poll conducted Oct. 26 to Oct. 29 asked likely Republican primary voters in the district whether they were aware of reports that “Gonzales, who is married, was having an affair with one of his congressional employees, Regina Santos-Aviles, and that employee recently committed suicide by setting herself on fire.” The question was blunt and specific, and it exposed just how many voters were learning the details for the first time. When half of your base says they did not know about a scandal like this, the political fallout can be sudden and sharp.
Pollsters followed up by asking voters if they were aware that Gonzales is “subject to an investigation by the House Ethics committee for violating rules for having an affair with an employee?” The follow-up underlined the institutional stakes: House rules clearly bar sexual relationships between members and staff, and any ethics probe takes on a seriousness beyond simple gossip. At this stage, public statements from the Ethics Committee were limited and the congressman’s office did not offer comment to explain the situation.
When the poll asked how the revelations affected support, almost half of respondents indicated a negative shift in their likelihood to back Gonzales. Specifically, 49% said they were either “less likely” or “much less likely” to vote for him in the primary after hearing the details. That level of voter disaffection is the kind of raw political currency that opponents and insurgent campaigns can turn into momentum.
Trafalgar also released a separate public survey taken Oct. 31 to Nov. 1 showing Gonzales holding a lead with 40.4% support, while challenger Brandon Herrera stood at 35.2%, leaving a slice of voters undecided. Those figures read as a narrow advantage in a crowded primary, but they also show how fragile leads can be when new information reshapes perceptions. A few points shifting the wrong way are enough to flip a primary outcome.
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Once voters were given the new context — the alleged affair, questions about propriety, plus competing narratives about candidates’ records — the poll results shifted dramatically. In that scenario, Herrera drew 43.9% of likely GOP primary support while Gonzales fell to 32.4%, signaling a clear reversal from the earlier topline numbers. That swing shows how rapidly a campaign’s fortunes can change when character and ethics become the dominant frame for voters.
From a Republican perspective, this is about more than personalities; it is about the standards our party expects from its own. Primary voters are making choices about who best represents conservative values and who can credibly defend the party’s agenda. When allegations of misconduct emerge, voters respond—and campaigns that fail to address accountability risk losing the trust that matters most on the ballot.
