Trump Pastor Jackson Lahmeyer Quits Politics After Affair Scandal with Former Miss Oklahoma Caitlin Simmons

Trump ally and Tulsa pastor Jackson Lahmeyer has quit his congressional race and stepped back from the pulpit in Oklahoma after admitting this week that he cheated on his wife with former Miss Oklahoma USA Caitlin Simmons Key in 2022, following a bombshell investigation that exposed their relationship. The 34-year-old married father of five, who founded the pro-Trump evangelical group Pastors for Trump, confirmed to the Daily Mail that he had an affair with Key and said he was 'done with politics' after his campaign collapsed in Tuesday's Republican primary.

For context, Lahmeyer had initially tried to brush off the original tabloid report, dismissing it as a hit piece from 'a British tabloid' as he fought to save his Trump-backed bid for Congress in Oklahoma. But the story did not go away. The Daily Mail published explicit text messages between Lahmeyer and Key, a 40-year-old single mother and longtime conservative activist, and then Key herself went on the record, describing repeated kisses and hinting that the pair's contact had gone further.

Pressed on the discrepancy between his denials and her account, Jackson Lahmeyer eventually conceded that the scandal went well beyond flirtatious messages.

Jackson Lahmeyer Admits 2022 Affair With Caitlin Simmons Key

The pastor's admission came in an interview on Thursday, a day after he bowed out of the Republican primary. Asked whether Caitlin Simmons Key was lying about their physical relationship, Lahmeyer replied: 'No, she is not lying.'

He then acknowledged that he had cheated on his wife in 2022. When the Daily Mail asked point-blank whether the two had s*x, he said: 'We kissed and in 2022 I had an affair on my wife and I've owned that. But Caitlin Key and I did not have s*x during this election. There's plenty of text messages to prove that.'

Pushed again on whether he was admitting that the 2022 encounter 'crossed the line into s*x,' he answered simply: 'In 2022 I cheated on my wife.'

Key had already laid out her version. She told the outlet that the affair took place late in 2022, shortly after her divorce was finalised, following drinks and heavy alcohol use that ended with the two at one of Lahmeyer's residences. She described it as a single night, and said their relationship did not become physical again until this year's campaign, when they kissed several times while working together.

'It was just that one night,' Key said, adding that they then did not see each other for about a year. She claimed she had only 'fragmented' memories of the encounter and said she was so drunk when she left that she blew out a tyre on her new white Range Rover.

None of that was supposed to become public, according to Key. She said she never intended for the 2022 affair to be exposed but chose to speak in full after Lahmeyer disclosed it in his own telling. In hindsight, she said, she saw what she called a warped power dynamic at work, as a well-known megachurch pastor stepped in to 'support' a woman going through a brutal divorce.

'Women who are in difficult relationships, they're very easily preyed upon by others,' she said.

From 'MAGA Warrior' To Collapse Of The Jackson Lahmeyer Campaign

The personal fallout has been brutal, and very public. Lahmeyer's wife, Kendra, confronted Key directly via text on 9 May, accusing her of wrecking their home. 'You are a home wrecking whore. Did you enjoy ruining our family?' she wrote, reminding Key that her husband 'has 5 kids.'

The political damage was just as swift. Lahmeyer entered the race with the backing of Donald Trump, who had branded him a 'MAGA Warrior' who 'WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN.' Polling models reportedly gave him an 89 per cent chance of winning the primary before the scandal broke.

By Tuesday night, those odds were in tatters. Lahmeyer managed just 25.9 per cent of the vote, behind state Representative Mark Tedford's 32.2 per cent. After the results, Trump shifted his endorsement to Tedford. A source told the Daily Mail that a haul of Jackson Lahmeyer campaign merchandise ended up dumped in a skip behind his Tulsa church.

Lahmeyer, who had already cancelled his Sunday sermon as the first story landed, framed his withdrawal as a spiritual reckoning rather than a straightforward political defeat. 'As much as I want to be in Congress, I am going to choose to make things right with my wife and my kids,' he said.

He described feeling he was 'heading down a very, very bad path' and went so far as to say that the implosion of his campaign 'may have spared my life and my family'. He admitted knowing all along that what he was doing was wrong but convincing himself 'it would never come out.'

'I knew the entire time,' he said. 'You have the feelings of guilt and shame and all that kind of stuff.'

The decision to quit, he insisted, was his alone. He recalled driving home on Tuesday night behind his wife, taking a different exit from hers and deciding, as he put it: 'I'm going to choose my wife over a dream.' According to Lahmeyer, Kendra wanted him to stay in and finish the race, and he called her 'a lot tougher than I am', adding: 'She didn't do anything wrong, and she's taken a lot of pain.'

He has now announced an indefinite sabbatical from preaching at Sheridan Church and says his political career is over. 'I've had my fair share,' he said. 'I had a lot of fun. I met a lot of great people.'

The pastor says he has apologised to his congregation, to donors and to Trump himself. 'I do apologize for absolutely making a terrible, terrible decision. It's nobody's fault. It's Jackson Lahmeyer made a bad decision,' he told the Mail. He said he has 'confessed everything' to his wife and his church and described himself as someone who had been 'holding on to stuff' he needed to let go of.

Key, meanwhile, is clear about where responsibility lies. She joined the Jackson Lahmeyer campaign as a fundraiser this year, helped raise money, appeared alongside him with Republican figures such as Roger Stone and Rudy Giuliani, and was then abruptly dragged into a national scandal.

'My whole intention was for people to know that he shouldn't be leading a church,' she said. 'I wasn't trying to destroy the man's life. His own actions have done that.'

And for all the confessions, apologies and thrown-away merch, that is the part of the story that is unlikely to vanish quietly in an Oklahoma skip.