Lynn Chapman Isn't New to This Fight. She's Been Fighting for Nevada Since 1985.
Some Northern Nevadans, conservative and otherwise, are still steaming over David Flippo.
Not just how he won his Republican primary for Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District, though that's part of it.
It's also who he is and where he came from.
Flippo beat former state Sen. James Settelmeyer with a wave of ads that twisted Settelmeyer's record and stirred up national culture-war fights that had little to do with Nevada.
Even Republicans who backed Flippo afterward called some of it “personal attacks.”
But Flippo also wasn't even planning to run in the CD2 until a few months ago. He was running for a different congressional seat entirely, down in Clark County.
Once Rep. Mark Amodei announced his retirement, Flippo rented a house in Reno and filed to run in CD2 instead, all while keeping his primary home in Las Vegas.
That hasn't been forgotten. The word “opportunist” keeps coming up.
Northern Nevadans already feel like Clark County sucks up the state's attention, its money and its political power at their expense.
Now the Republican nominee for their congressional seat is a man who lived in Clark County until just weeks before he filed to represent them.
That's got some voters in CD2 looking past the GOP nominee entirely. And one name is increasingly coming up in those conversations:
Lynn Chapman.
Four Decades in the Trenches, Not a Few Weeks
Chapman is the Independent American Party's nominee for CD2.
She's not a newcomer, and she's not a transplant chasing an open seat. In fact, she ran for this same seat in 2024.
But her real résumé goes back four decades in this state, and it's built almost entirely on showing up.
Chapman moved to Nevada in 1984 with her husband Russ. They were married 46 years before his passing. She's a widow now, with one daughter and a son-in-law.
She started working the Nevada Legislature in 1987 and hasn't stopped.
She helped get the Independent American Party on the ballot in the early 1990s and has served the party as State Treasurer, National Committeeman and a member of its Executive Board ever since.
She's worked alongside longtime Nevada conservative leader Janine Hansen since 1985, including years spent gathering signatures on petition drives across the state.
Those petitions weren't small stuff either. They covered defining marriage as between a man and a woman, cutting taxes, and stopping government employees from holding seats in two branches of government at once.
Chapman says she and Hansen were nearly arrested more than once while out gathering signatures for those causes.
In the early 1990s, Chapman also became State Vice President of Nevada Families for Freedom, part of the Eagle Forum network, working legislative issues at the Capitol session after session.
And her advocacy isn't limited to elections.
Chapman homeschooled her daughter and helped change Nevada's home-school laws through the Legislature.
She served for years on the Nevada Home Educators board and the state's Home School Advisory Board, working directly with the State Board of Education.
She spent a decade teaching the AWANA program, a Bible-based youth program similar to scouting, through her church.
Chapman is also a 51-year member of the American Legion Auxiliary, where she's served 10 terms as Unit President and 12 years as Unit Girls State Chairman, along with stints as Poppy Chairman, Legislative Chairman and Unit Secretary/Treasurer.
Today she's a regular presence at the Washoe County Republican Assembly and the Conservative Talk Luncheon, and she's testified at school board and county commission meetings for years.
The Real Stakes
Nevada's 2nd District hasn't elected a Democrat in its history. But this year isn't a normal year.
Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson actually outraised Flippo in the second quarter, and national Democrats think this is their best shot yet at the seat.
That means every conservative vote matters.
And if a meaningful slice of Northern Nevada voters decide to vote for Chapman, or decide not to vote at all, that math could hand the seat to the Democrats for the first time ever.
But let's be clear about where that responsibility lands.
It isn't Chapman's job to drop out so a Clark County transplant can coast to victory. And it isn't Northern Nevada voters' duty to fall in line behind a nominee just because he's wearing an “R.”
The Republican Party doesn't own conservative votes. It has to earn them – and Flippo hasn't shown Northern Nevada much reason to trust him yet.
If David Flippo wants those voters back, the burden is on him to make the case that he actually represents this district and not just a stopover on his way to Congress.
That's on him, not on Nevada conservatives to swallow hard and vote for him anyway.
And if he doesn't make that case, and Nevada Republicans lose a seat they've never lost before, conservatives shouldn't be the ones blamed for it.
Neither should Lynn Chapman.
The blame falls on the nominee who ran a divisive primary, moved into the district just in time to file, and never did the work to earn Northern Nevada's trust.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. Digital technology was used in the research, writing, and production of this article. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
