Three close polls, a DCCC target-list upgrade, a six-figure AFL-CIO campaign and a planned Trump visit are transforming a race Republicans have never lost.
A Race That Was Supposed to Be Boring
Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District stretches from Reno across most of rural Nevada. Republicans have held it since it was drawn after the 1980 Census, and no Democrat has ever represented it. Donald Trump carried it by roughly 14 points in 2024.
On paper, Republican David Flippo should be cruising.
He isn’t.
On Monday, the DCCC added Benitez-Thompson to its Red to Blue program, which supplies money, staff and strategic support to priority challengers.
Republicans are responding in kind. At this weekend’s Nevada GOP meeting, party leaders announced that President Trump will campaign in NV-02, an extraordinary commitment for a House seat the party has never lost.
NEW: I’m hearing President Trump will visit #NV02.
At today’s NV GOP meeting, I’m told, state party chair Michael McDonald said at the podium that he talked to the president yesterday and that Trump has plans to come to Northern Nevada.
— Mini Racker (@MiniRacker) October 3, 2026
Three public polls show a genuinely competitive race. A July Wedgewood poll had Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson ahead 48 to 46. A late-August Strategies 360 survey, conducted for her own campaign, showed Flippo leading 45 to 42.
The latest, from GBAO, had Benitez-Thompson up 38 to 37, with Independent American Party candidate Lynn Chapman drawing a striking 14 percent.
Why the Democratic Poll Deserves a Second Look
GBAO is a Democratic firm, and it conducted the survey for the Nevada Alliance, a Democratic-aligned group.
Skepticism is reasonable. Dismissing it outright is harder.
The same respondents gave Governor Joe Lombardo a 15-point lead, 53 to 38. That is nearly identical to Lombardo’s 2022 performance in this district, when he beat Steve Sisolak here 55 to 41. In other words, the poll appears to capture the same electorate that elected him four years ago.
That year, Mark Amodei won the seat by 22 points. A Republican House candidate in this district typically runs ahead of the top of the ticket, not behind it. Yet in this poll, voters who favor Lombardo by 15 and Republicans by 6 on the generic ballot are essentially tied between Flippo and Benitez-Thompson.
The sample is not tilted toward Democrats. These voters are comfortable with Republicans. They simply have not warmed to Flippo.
Organized Labor Enters the Fight
The national AFL-CIO is launching a six-figure digital ad campaign in the district, likely its first ever there.
The catalyst was a Washington Post report that Flippo repeatedly claimed a Bronze Star “for valor” when he had received a standard Bronze Star, which recognizes meritorious service rather than heroism under fire. Flippo apologized and blamed campaign video editors and copywriters.
That explanation did not hold up for long. NN&V first reported that Flippo wore a hat throughout his campaign showing his Bronze Star next to two small “V” pins, the symbols of combat valor. After the Post story broke, he switched to a plain green hat, and reporter Tabitha Mueller noticed the old photos disappearing from his website.
NN&V preserved the original page before it was changed.
👀 GOP CD2 candidate David Flippo changed his main website photo from one of him wearing a hat with his Bronze Star and two “V” shaped pins on the side (left) to one of him hatless (right).
Comes after reporting on his exaggerated military record claims
https://t.co/aWGIlohBjJ https://t.co/vxC46rOAwk
— Tabitha Mueller (@tabitha_mueller) October 2, 2026
Mother Jones later found he had worn the hat since at least August 2023. The campaign has not explained the pins.
The union filmed veterans at the Nevada Veterans Memorial Plaza in Sparks.
Spokesman Steve Smith said, voters:
“should be hearing from actual veterans: how they feel about this.”
Marine veteran Mickey Grizzle was blunt:
“He’s betraying the military, the rank and ribbon system, and so what else is he willing to betray?”
The PAC That Beat Three Freedom Caucus Members
The second new player is the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC, a solar-backed super PAC chaired by solar executive Tom Matzzie.
Its funding is remarkably concentrated. Chris Larsen, a California billionaire, Democratic megadonor and chairman of the crypto company Ripple, supplied $6 million of the roughly $6.8 million the group raised through midyear.
The PAC has committed $15 million against seven Republican House candidates, including Flippo. That total covers all seven races, not NV-02 alone.
Its mission is punishing Republicans who opposed green energy tax credits, and it has a track record.
This year it helped defeat three sitting conservative congressmen in their primaries: Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Chip Roy of Texas, and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. All three are Freedom Caucus members who fought to cut clean energy subsidies from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The PAC spent $2 million against Ogles and $1.7 million against Roy.
AIPAC’s Endorsement and a Charity Claim
AIPAC endorsed Flippo on Thursday. That’s a notable get in a race where Benitez-Thompson has said she will reject AIPAC support.
But the announcement raised a new question. “After the October 7th attacks, I started a non-profit to deliver food and supplies to the victims of the attacks,” Flippo wrote.
The record tells a more complicated story.
Flippo did help pay for a shipment of roughly 24 tons of rice to Israel after the attacks.
But NN&V found that the shipment went through the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitaller, not OSJ Food Aid USA, the nonprofit he now leads. That nonprofit did not receive IRS recognition until January 2025. Even its own website credits the Knights with the earlier aid missions.
No one disputes that Flippo helped. The issue is that he is now crediting a nonprofit that did not yet exist in its current form. He did not respond to our questions about what OSJ Food Aid USA itself delivered.
Read our coverage:
David Flippo Says His Nonprofit Delivered Oct. 7 Aid: Records Point to a Different Organization
The Case for Flippo
Flippo still holds real advantages. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in the district by nearly 71,000.
He also has a big money edge. Flippo’s campaign and the outside groups supporting him or attacking Benitez-Thompson have already spent at least $4 million. That includes $710,000 in TV time reserved by Club for Growth Action. Outside spending in this race is the highest in the district’s recorded history, and almost all of it is on Flippo’s side.
The real total is likely higher. Flippo’s own campaign spending has only been reported through June 30, and new numbers come out October 15.
His defenders argue the valor controversy has been overblown. When the Post story broke, Bill Conrad of Combat Vets for Congress called it a “hit piece,” and Flippo’s campaign pointed to discharge papers listing a unit award with a valor device as the source of the confusion.
That explanation came before the hat pins surfaced, and the campaign has not addressed them since. Even taken at face value, one unit award accounts for one valor device, not two.
Read More:
What Comes Next
A debate is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, October 8, at the Douglas County Senior Center in Minden, though the organizer acknowledged a candidate could still back out. Expect heavier advertising, more mail, and a surge of national attention around Trump’s visit.
One major unknown remains: all of the public polling so far predates the controversy over Flippo’s military record — from the Washington Post’s initial Bronze Star reporting to subsequent questions about the Valor pins he wore throughout the campaign and the backlash from Northern Nevada veterans.
That makes the next round of polling particularly significant.
NV-02 hasn’t suddenly become a Democratic district; the available polling still shows voters favoring Republicans elsewhere on the ticket. The question now is whether this congressional race continues to behave differently from the district around it.
With less than a month until Election Day, that’s why a race that was supposed to be routine is suddenly getting national attention.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. This article was written with the assistance of AI. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
