By Sam Barron | Wednesday, June 17, 2026
One day after advancing to a Republican congressional runoff in Oklahoma, pastor Jackson Lahmeyer ended his campaign amid reports of illicit texts he sent to a woman who was not his wife.
Lahmeyer dropped his bid minutes after President Trump rescinded his endorsement. The candidate, set to face state Rep. Mark Tedford for Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District in deep-red Tulsa, suspended his race.
“I’ve made the difficult decision to suspend my campaign for Congress,” Lahmeyer wrote on social media before deleting his accounts. “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.”
Reports emerged prior to the primary of intimate text messages between Lahmeyer and a woman who was not his wife. Lahmeyer admitted sending the texts on his since-deleted Facebook account but claimed they were “carefully cherry-picked to create an impression that is not accurate.”
“I own crossing a boundary line through text messaging,” he wrote. “I also ended all communication.”
In early May, Trump called Lahmeyer a “MAGA Warrior,” noting he founded Pastors for Trump and “has been with me from the very beginning of our Movement to MAKE AMERICA GREAT.”
Trump rescinded his endorsement in a Wednesday post. “I greatly appreciate Jackson Lahmeyer’s hard work under difficult circumstances—he has always been with me, and I will always be with him,” the former president wrote.
“But now I will support America First Patriot, Mark Tedford,” Trump added. “Mark is Pro-Trump and MAGA all the way.”
Tedford said he was getting his hair cut when he learned of Trump’s endorsement. “It was kind of surreal,” he remarked. “Everything’s moving very fast.”
