Early buzz a couple days ago celebrated that Republican State Sen. Carrie Buck had outraised Democrat Rep. Dina Titus in Nevada’s 1st Congressional District race – and conservative outlets treated it like a major breakthrough.
But those headlines ignored the numbers that actually matter.
While Buck did raise more in Q4, she also spent far more of it – leaving her with roughly $297,000 cash on hand compared to Titus’ $841,000. That’s a serious disadvantage for a challenger running in a heavily Democrat district.
The situation worsened last night with the exit from the GOP primary challenger Bobby Khan.
After being blocked by GOP clubs and sidelined by party insiders, Khan announced that he will now run as an independent in the general election.
“I’m a common-sense conservative businessman and that’s what my campaign is all about,” Khan wrote on X, noting Nevada’s large and growing number of registered non-partisan voters.
“By me continuing to run as a Republican in the primary, I’d cheat my voters and supporters out of the opportunity to vote for me, because the only people that would be able to vote for me are registered Republicans,” Khan said in a video released last night.
“So what I decided to do,” Khan continued, “is now I’m going to run in this election as an independent.”
That move means Khan will skip the primary and appear directly on the November ballot, where his aggressive, high-visibility social media campaign is likely to pull far more votes from Buck than Titus.
“What I just did is I took the power away from the (Republican) establishment because the establishment thought that they were going to box me out,” Khan concluded. “Now, guess what? I outsmarted them, like I always do. To my opponent – checkmate.”
Combine Buck’s weak cash position, a Democrat-friendly district, likely lower GOP turnout in a midterm, and a disruptive independent candidate – and the result looks grim for Republicans in CD1 in November.
While the idiots running these establishment Republican clubs discounted me because of me being a felon and rallied around someone that called republicans “vile creatures” I BUILT A MASSIVE BASE! These idiots have no clue what they missed out on. Do you know what it costs to… pic.twitter.com/YJGDkKBpIV
— Bobby Khan (@imBobbyKhan) February 4, 2026
What could have been a real opportunity to defeat a vulnerable incumbent Democrat is shaping up to be another self-inflicted GOP loss. #FAFO
