Oklahoma congressional candidate drops out amid texting infidelity furor

The Oklahoma congressional candidate Jackson Lahmeyer announced on Wednesday that he was suspending his campaign, after the Christian pastor once endorsed by Donald Trump, who had advanced to a Republican primary runoff, was reported to have sent extramarital, intimate text messages.

“After prayerful consideration with my wife, Kendra, and my team over the last twenty four hours, I’ve made the difficult decision to suspend my campaign for Congress,” the Christian nationalist and Pastors for Trump founder wrote in a statement on Wednesday afternoon. “I do not want to be a distraction to my family, my church, and the great people of Oklahoma’s 1st congressional district, who deserve a strong conservative voice representing them in Washington.

“I sincerely appreciate all the support along the way,” Lahmeyer added. “I will never forget those who stood by me and fought alongside us when I needed them the most.”

Lahmeyer’s announcement came one day after he and fellow Republican Mark Tedford advanced to a runoff election in their party primary to replace Kevin Hern, who vacated his House seat to run for the US Senate.

Lahmeyer’s withdrawal makes Tedford the presumptive Republican nominee.

Lahmeyer’s decision also followed a report by the Daily Mail over the weekend that he had sent intimate text messages to a former campaign fundraiser who was not his wife and had previously won the Miss Oklahoma USA beauty pageant.

In a social media post on Sunday, Lahmeyer described the Daily Mail report as “distorted” but acknowledged sending the messages.

“This matter was already dealt with privately between me and my wife, Kendra, through counsel and prayer with God and spiritual advisors,” he wrote. “I own crossing a boundary line through text messaging. I also ended all communication. The British tabloid tried to paint me out in a way which is not the case.”

Trump had endorsed Lahmeyer in early May. However, in a statement on Wednesday afternoon, just a few minutes before Lahmeyer announced the suspension of his campaign, the president shifted his endorsement to Tedford.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that he appreciated “Jackson Lahmeyer’s hard work under difficult circumstances” and that “he has always been with me, and I will always be with him”.

But, Trump said, “when it comes to the current … race for Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District, I will be supporting America First Patriot, Mark Tedford”.

Lahmeyer suspended his campaign about two months after the representatives Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales – a California Democrat and Texas Republican, respectively – resigned amid bipartisan uproar over allegations of sexual misconduct against both.

In Swalwell’s case, the allegations also prompted him to withdraw from California’s gubernatorial race. And Gonzales’s admission that he had had an affair with an aide who later died by suicide played a prominent role in his case.

The Lahmeyer campaign’s suspension also came a little more than a week after Graham Platner clinched the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Maine despite an extramarital sexting scandal, along with a host of other controversies.