WASHINGTON _ Backlash over a leak of video and text messages between Rep. Joe Barton and an unidentified woman could trigger a political battle that opens up a long-held Republican seat.
Barton, 68, Texas' longest-serving House member, told The Texas Tribune that he was "deciding how to respond" to a video showing him naked on Twitter. It was taken while he was separated, but not yet divorced from his second wife.
Barton had announced earlier this month that he planned to seek another term.
Now, he said Wednesday, he is reconsidering. "I am talking to a number of people, all of whom I have faith in and am deciding how to respond, quite frankly," he said.
Texas's filing deadline is Dec. 11. The primary will be held March 6.
President Donald Trump won Barton's district with 54 percent of the vote last year. Hillary Clinton took 42 percent. The voting age population is 17.7 percent Latino and 17.5 percent black, according to the Democratic group Lone Star Project.
The district is less Democratic-leaning than the four congressional seats national Democrats are targeting in Texas next year. Those include GOP Reps. Will Hurd, Pete Sessions and John Culberson, plus retiring Rep. Lamar Smith's open seat. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Barton already has Democratic opponents, including Ruby Woolridge, who ran against him in 2016. Woolridge took 39 percent that year, the most any Democrat has received against Barton in his more than three-decade career.
"I'm embarrassed for him, citizens deserve better," Woolridge told The Fort Worth Star-Telegram Wednesday. "He should step down immediately."
Woolridge said the Republican Party as a whole faces a morality crisis right now, citing Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused of inappropriate relationships with minors.
"Now that the Republican Party is the party of pedophiles, that changes a lot of minds," Woolridge said, referencing Moore.
Barton told The Texas Tribune his relationships were with consenting adults.
Woolridge met with the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington in September, and spoke with Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez about her race at the state Democratic executive committee meeting in Austin over the summer.
National Democrats have met with another candidate, public relations specialist Jana Lynne Sanchez, who attended the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's candidate forum in Washington last month. She's been endorsed by the New Democrat Coalition.
"2018 is the year women say, 'We've had enough,'" Sanchez told the Star-Telegram Wednesday. "It started with Trump and it's going to finish with a big blue wave of women sweeping into office."
Sanchez is part of a group of North Texas Democratic women who could be featured in a documentary about women running for office, which could be released before Election Day.
Republicans say GOP state Sen. Brian Birdwell is considering joining the race, potentially challenging Barton in a primary.
Birdwell's district includes Ellis and Navarro counties, the rural, Republican-heavy parts of the 6th Congressional District.
Strategists said other Republican prospects could include state Rep. Tony Tinderholt and state Sen. Konni Burton.
The National Republican Congressional Committee declined to comment on the race.
If Barton resigned from the seat, there would be a special election next year that both parties could target.
Texas uses an open primary system in special elections, where candidates from all parties appear on a single ballot. If no candidate takes more than 50 percent, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to a runoff.
"If it were a regular open seat I don't think it would be that competitive, but a special election scenario could have low turnout, which would help Democrats," said David Wasserman, House editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
