Brandon Herrera raises $1 million, swipes at Rep. Tony Gonzales over alleged affair

By Renzo Downey, The Texas Tribune
November 25, 2025

Brandon Herrera, the gun rights activist YouTuber who came within a few hundred votes of unseating U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales in last year’s GOP primary, has raised more than $1 million in his repeat bid against the San Antonio congressman — eclipsing his own haul from the 2024 cycle with more than three months to go until the primary.

Since launching his campaign in August, Herrera has raised just over $1.1 million between donations to his various PACs and the $100,000 he personally lent his campaign in September, according to figures first shared with The Texas Tribune. Nearly all of the donated funds — more than $1 million — are eligible to be spent on the March 3 primary.

In a press release announcing his fundraising numbers, Herrera accused his opponent of stepping outside of his marriage — a reference to media reports he had an extramarital affair with a congressional aide who died earlier this year after setting herself on fire. Gonzales vigorously denied the affair — reported by conservative Texas outlet Current Revolt and the British tabloid Daily Mail — at The Texas Tribune Festival in Austin earlier this month.

“While my opponent Tony Gonzales has prioritized betraying President Trump and distracting himself with having extramarital affairs with his congressional staff, I’ve been hard at work listening to the voters of Southwest Texas and heeding their call for a new representative with integrity who will support President Trump, fight for greater affordability, and defend our Constitutional rights,” said Herrera, a conservative firebrand aligned with the party’s hardline faction.

Gonzales’ appearance at TribFest marked the first time he has publicly spoken about the alleged affair with his district director, Regina Santos-Aviles, 35, who died of suicide by self-immolation at her home in Uvalde, the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office told multiple San Antonio media outlets. The Daily Mail later reported that Santos-Aviles’ husband, Adrian Aviles, was aware of the alleged relationship. Santos-Aviles and her husband were reportedly separated at the time of her death.

“The rumors are completely untruthful, and Regina’s family has asked for privacy,” said Gonzales, who is married with six kids, adding that he was not apprised of the circumstances surrounding her death and was waiting on a final report from law enforcement.

The Texas Tribune has not independently confirmed Current Revolt’s or the Daily Mail’s reporting.

A 2024 redux

It’s unclear how the episode surrounding Gonzales’ aide might play into the primary. The winner of the GOP contest will be heavily favored in November to capture the far-flung district, which runs from San Antonio to the outskirts of El Paso and reelected Gonzales by a nearly 25-point margin last fall.

For now, Gonzales maintains a major cash advantage over Herrera, with more than $2.5 million in the bank through the end of September. However, Gonzales led in fundraising throughout their 2024 contest, too, only to win by just 354 votes in a runoff, even after U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team came to Gonzales’ aid.

Herrera has raised nearly all his money this cycle through his joint fundraising committee, a mechanism that allows candidates to fundraise alongside other candidates or organizations and split the profits.

Herrera uses his joint fundraising committee to benefit his main campaign account and his leadership PAC, which can be used to support fellow candidates. Normal federal contribution limits still apply, though campaigns can use tactics to exceed those limits in practice by, for example, swapping donations between their leadership PAC and another candidate’s leadership PAC.

Political candidates have increasingly turned to joint fundraising committees in recent years because they allow donors to conveniently cut one large check to be dispersed among multiple entities linked to the candidate, including leadership PACs and state or local parties.

Herrera, a “guntuber” and activist known online as “The AK Guy,” has been admonished by the left and the right for his off-color humor. He’s joked about veteran suicide, which drew criticism from Mike Banks, now Trump’s Border Patrol chief, and mocked Trump’s son, Barron Trump. He’s made numerous Holocaust jokes and, in one 2022 montage, marched to Nazi music.

But some conservatives view Herrera as a warrior for the grassroots and their counter to Gonzales, who has been pilloried by activists and censured by the Texas GOP in 2023 for helping pass a bipartisan gun safety bill in 2022. Herrera’s more than 4 million YouTube subscribers help make up a nationwide fundraising base that has driven his campaign with small-dollar donations from more than 33,000 individuals.

In the Texas Tribune Festival interview, Gonzales waved off the threat of Herrera’s second challenge.

“I’ve beaten him multiple times, and I’ll beat him again,” he said. “Call ’em zombies. You knock ’em down, they come back again.”

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.