A Trump-backed pastor whose congressional campaign was annihilated after the Daily Mail exposed his relationship with a pageant queen aide has finally confessed, admitting in an exclusive interview that he cheated on his wife.

Jackson Lahmeyer, the married father of five who founded Pastors for Trump, stunningly revealed to the Daily Mail on Thursday that the story he'd dismissed days earlier from 'a British tabloid,' was all true - and went further.

Now he admits that in 2022 he had sex with Caitlin Simmons Key, the former Miss Oklahoma USA with whom he exchanged red-hot text messages during the 2026 campaign.

Lahmeyer, who bowed out of the Republican primary on Wednesday, apologized to Donald Trump, his wife, his constituents and his congregation as he told the Daily Mail that he was done with politics and taking a sabbatical from preaching.

Our investigation revealed a cache of intimate messages sent by Lahmeyer, 34, to Key, 40, during the campaign, including one in which he told her: 'I enjoyed those lips.'

He denied any physical relationship ahead of Tuesday's primary.

Key then went on the record, describing multiple kisses throughout the spring and warning the pastor to stop lying as she hinted there was more to the story.

Pressed by the Daily Mail on the gap between his account and hers, Lahmeyer finally cracked.

Asked directly whether Key was lying, he said: 'No, she is not lying.'

Asked if the two ever had sex, he replied: '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 sex during this election. There's plenty of text messages to prove that.'

Pushed on whether he was admitting that in 2022 it crossed the line into sex, he said simply: 'In 2022 I cheated on my wife.'

He cast his withdrawal from the race as a moral reckoning, telling the Daily Mail he was 'heading down a very, very bad path' and that the implosion of his campaign 'may have spared my life and my family.'

He said he knew all along that what he was doing was wrong but had convinced 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 pastor's confession confirmed what Key had hinted at days earlier.

The pair first met in 2021, when Lahmeyer was a political newcomer and Key, a fixture on Oklahoma's conservative scene, was active in the same Republican circles.

He was the pastor who refused to shut his church during COVID. She would go on to raise money for his campaigns.

They reconnected the following year, while Key was going through a bruising divorce.

Lahmeyer reached out to check on her, and the megachurch pastor began offering her spiritual support.

It was in that period, in late 2022, that the affair took place.

Key, whose divorce had been finalized only weeks earlier, met Lahmeyer for drinks. Both had already been drinking, and the pair ended up back at one of his residences.

She was emphatic that it was a single occasion, and that the two did not have a physical relationship before or for years afterward.

'It was just that one night,' she said, adding that the pair did not see each other again for another year.

Key said she had only fragmented memories of the encounter. She claimed she was so drunk that she blew out a tire on her brand-new white Range Rover trying to leave.

The single mom told the Daily Mail she never intended for the 2022 affair to become public, but was now choosing to address the full circumstances after it was disclosed by Lahmeyer.

With hindsight, she said, she recognized what she described as the warped power dynamic at play as she was going through an agonizing divorce.

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

She joined Lahmeyer's congressional campaign as a fundraiser this year, and their relationship turned physical again, though only as far as kissing.

'I literally never touched him again besides kissing,' she said.

They also exchanged the lurid text messages that first blew the scandal open on Sunday and forced Lahmeyer into a corner he couldn't back out of.

Lahmeyer cast his withdrawal as a moral reckoning rather than a 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 the collapse of his campaign as 'a blessing in disguise,' telling the Daily Mail: 'I was heading down a very, very bad path and this may have spared my life and my family.'

He apologized directly to the voters and donors who had backed his campaign.

'I'm just beyond grateful for them, but then at the same time, so sorry for letting them down and I own it completely,' he said. 'I'm not trying to cast blame on anybody. I own it. I apologize.'

The decision, he said, came to him on Tuesday night, as the lackluster primary results rolled in and he drove home behind his wife.

'She took an exit to get on the highway. I went a different path to go back home. And what came to my mind was just, "I'm going to choose my wife over a dream."'

He insisted the choice was his alone.

'It was really my decision,' he said. 'My wife's a lot tougher than I am. She wanted us to stay in and just continue and finish the race.'

Of his wife, Kendra, he added: 'She didn't do anything wrong, and she's taken a lot of pain.'

He told her the race no longer mattered to him.

'I really don't care about the election. I know I should. I'm the candidate on the ballot, but I just need to make things right,' he said.

The runoff had been all but lost regardless. Lahmeyer, given 89 percent odds of winning before the Daily Mail's exclusive, took just 25.9 percent of the vote on Tuesday to state Representative Mark Tedford's 32.2 percent.

Trump, who anointed Lahmeyer a 'MAGA Warrior' who 'WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN' in May, switched his backing to Tedford after the results came in.

The unwinding was swift and visible. A source said a haul of Lahmeyer campaign merchandise was thrown in a dumpster behind his church in Tulsa last night.

Lahmeyer reserved a direct apology for Trump.

'It's the honor of a lifetime to have the endorsement of arguably the greatest president of my lifetime,' he said. 'I do apologize for absolutely making a terrible, terrible decision. It's nobody's fault. It's Jackson Lahmeyer made a bad decision.'

He said he had now unburdened himself completely.

'I've confessed everything to my wife. I've confessed everything to my church,' he said, describing himself as a man who had 'been holding on to stuff' he 'needed to set myself free of.'

Lahmeyer, who has announced an indefinite break from preaching at Sheridan Church, said he was finished with politics for good.

'I've had my fair share,' he said. 'I had a lot of fun. I met a lot of great people.'

For Key, who never wanted her own past dragged into the open, the reckoning was his to face alone.

'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.'

• Sign up HERE to our DC Insider newsletter