Van Taylor, left, and Keith Self

Republican Congressman Van Taylor fell just short of avoiding a runoff in Tuesday’s Texas Primary election, and today (Wednesday, March 2), Taylor fell out of the race altogether, announcing that he was withdrawing from the runoff. Taylor made the announcement at the same time that he admitted having had an affair a year ago.

Taylor has represented U.S. House District 3 since taking office in 2019 after defeating openly lesbian candidate Lorie Burch in the 2018 midterms, 54 percent to 44 percent.

Taylor won 49 percent of the of the vote in Tuesday’s GOP Primary. His closest challenger was former Collin County Judge Keith Self, who — with Taylor’s withdrawal from the race — now becomes the GOP nominee with a mere 27 percent of the vote on Tuesday. Suzanne Harp was third in the primary with 21 percent, and the other two challengers managed vote totals only in the low single digits.

All four of Taylor’s challengers had criticized him for voting to confirm the results of the 2020 presidential election (Trump lost, by the way. Lost bigly.) and for voting in favor of the commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Sandeep Srivasta won the Democratic Primary this week, but as the Texas Tribune notes, what was an already Republican-leaning district became even more of a GOP stronghold thanks to redistricting.

A Texas Tribune article published today said the Tribune’s reporters had been unable to independently verify reports Monday, Feb. 28, by right-wing media site Breitbart News that Taylor had “a months-long affair” last year with a woman identified as Tania Joya of Plano. Breitbart said that Joya herself disclosed the affair to the right-wing media outlet, and that she had shown screenshots from her phone of “communications” with Taylor as well bank records showing where she had deposited $5,000 she alleges Taylor paid her to keep quiet about the affair.

Joya is a former Jihadist who was previously married to a commander with the Islamic State, aka ISIS. She has since divorced her husband and renounced ISIS.

— Tammye Nash