Nobody gives Democrats much credit in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District. That makes sense on its face.
Republicans have held the seat every single year since 1983. But something changed when Mark Amodei announced his retirement. A door swung open — and a smart Democrat walked right through it with a blueprint.
Her name is Teresa Benitez-Thompson. And if you’re a conservative who cares about keeping NV-02 red, you need to pay attention.
Who Is TBT?
Teresa Benitez-Thompson — or TBT for short — is a Reno native in a way that’s becoming a political rarity. She’s a UNR grad and a former Miss Nevada whose twelve-year tenure in the Nevada Assembly culminated as Majority Leader.
When term limits pushed her out in 2022, she went straight to work as Chief of Staff for Attorney General Aaron Ford.
That last job matters. It means she had a front-row seat to what a Democrat can do in Northern Nevada when the Republican nominee hands them an opening. Now she’s using what she learned.
“When the Congressman announced his surprise retirement, I looked at the numbers and I thought, ‘You know, what is happening out there in the landscape that is changing, changing the calculus for him to not run again?‘”she told Nevada Newsmakers host Sam Shad.
“So looking at the numbers, there’s a couple of different things, and the reasons why I believe that a good Democrat can win the seat.”
She’s not bluffing. She ran the math.
Did you think she resigned her job as Chief of Staff for the Attorney General’s Office on a mere hunch?
Why NV-02 is a Paper Tiger
Political analysts are obsessed with the R+7 rating for Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District. In a vacuum, a seven-point generic Republican lean sounds comfortable. It sounds safe.
This presumption of safety is a reflection of the district’s broad partisan history, but it ignores the two biggest factors currently shifting the ground: the departure of a local legend and the anomaly of the 2024 presidential cycle.
Over the past fifteen years, NV-02 wasn’t simply an R+7 district; it’s Amodei+19.
Mark Amodei didn’t win because the lines were drawn for him; he won because he built a neighborhood brand that no party can transfer to a successor. His political power wasn’t found in a PAC check—it was built in the checkout line at Raley’s.
He was a local fixture, a neighbor before he was a Congressman, and he earned the loyalty of “Amodei Democrats” who crossed party lines specifically for him.
The numbers are undeniable:
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In 2020: Trump carried NV-02 by 11 points. Amodei won it by 16.
- In 2022: Joe Lombardo won the district by a 14-point margin. Amodei won it by 22.
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In 2024: Trump carried the district by roughly 14 points. Amodei won it by 19.
Over the last three cycles, Amodei has carried the district by an average of 19 points. In 2022, even a popular, successful Republican like Lombardo ran 8 points behind Amodei here.
While that 19-point “Amodei Average” isn’t what economists use to calculate the district’s lean, it is exactly what created the illusion of an unsinkable Titanic of Republican stability. It allowed the party to believe the district was a fortress, rather than admitting it was just a well-commanded outpost.
More importantly, it is the reason Democrats haven’t historically invested here. In his final run in 2024, Amodei didn’t even draw a Democratic challenger.
But the current R+7 rating didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree. It was calculated in the context of what came before it: The “Kamala Harris Factor,” a Democratic ticket that historically collapsed in Northern Nevada—the first to lose the statewide popular vote in 20 years.
The R+7 isn’t a solid foundation; it’s the high-water mark of a uniquely weak Democratic Presidential cycle.
The Blueprint Is Already Written
In the 2022 attorney general’s race, Aaron Ford — a Clark County Democrat with no Northern Nevada roots — came within 0.8 points of winning NV-02 outright. Read that twice. And, maybe one more time.
Ford pulled 47.5% inside the district to Sigal Chattah’s 48.3%. A Las Vegas-based Democrat nearly won in a district that Republicans have held for four decades, in a midterm year, against a Republican nominee who simply gave away too many votes.
The “generic” R+7 rating dissolves when the candidate is “too red” for Reno. The district is actually an R+0.8 district when the GOP runs a firebrand.
If Ford could come that close, the math for TBT starts in a very different place. For the Reno native with 12 years of legislative relationships across the district, that seven-point cushion becomes a margin-of-error race.
The Washoe Split
While the “R+7” data looks at the top of the ticket, they are missing the massive ticket-splitting happening right underneath it. The story Democrats are counting on is told entirely in Washoe County.
In 2024, Kamala Harris carried Washoe by a slim 1 percent, or 2,600 votes. On the same ballot, Jacky Rosen won it by over 15,000. That 12,500-vote gap represents the ‘Free Agents’ of Northern Nevada—voters who rejected the top of the ticket but stayed for the down-ballot Democrat.
Despite running in a year where the top of the ticket actually carried Nevada, Republican Sam Brown’s vote share in Washoe was more than 4 percentage points lower than Trump’s. He couldn’t hold the county even with the wind at his back.
This proves that Northern Nevada voters are highly sophisticated ticket-splitters; they are perfectly willing to reject a Republican they find too extreme or too disconnected, even while backing the party’s standard-bearer at the top.
The “Red Meat” Tax: A Progression of Failure
This isn’t just a theory; it’s a blueprint that has already been tested. To understand the “Red Meat Tax,” look at the progression of three Republican candidates—each one a step further away from the “neighborhood brand” that Amodei perfected.
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The Gold Standard (2022): Adam Laxalt had name recognition, family pedigree, a Trump endorsement, and a statewide win as AG under his belt. He lost Washoe County by 5 points.
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The Credentialed Vet (2024): Sam Brown was a Purple Heart combat veteran with Trump’s full-throated endorsement in a year Trump actually carried the state. He lost Washoe by nearly 6 points.
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The Southern Firebrand (2022): Then there is Sigal Chattah. A Las Vegas-based candidate who leaned entirely into the “red meat” model. She didn’t just lose Washoe; she collapsed, losing the county by nearly 15 points.
Every step away from the Amodei model and toward the “Vegas firebrand” model costs Republicans dearly. In 2022, Aaron Ford—a Las Vegas Democrat—carried Washoe 55% to 41% specifically because Chattah gave away the middle.
The Homeless Middle
For fifteen years, Mark Amodei acted as a political shelter for a specific block of roughly 30,000 “crossover” voters. People who liked him personally even though they often voted for Democrats in other races.
In 2024, Washoe voters forged a 12,500-vote gap between Harris and Rosen, leaving Brown out in the cold.
But it’s not just about ticket-splitters; it’s about those who refuse to vote for anyone at all when the choice is too extreme.
In 2022, over 7,000 voters in Washoe County looked at the firebrand Republican on the ballot, Sigal Chattah, and chose “None of These Candidates.”
Those voters—the ones who opted out but turned in a ballot anyway—are the margin of the election. While they didn’t cross over for Ford, that 7,021 figure is nearly triple the raw vote margin by which Ford lost the entire district (approx. 2,500 votes).
The Bottom Line: These voters proved in 2022 that they would rather pick “no one” than a firebrand. They proved in 2024 they will split their ticket for a perceived moderate like Rosen.
If TBT holds the Ford baseline and captures the ticket-splitters and the opted-out, she doesn’t just win; she flips the seat by a margin that makes the R+7 rating look like a clerical error.
And that brings us to David Flippo.
The Flippo Problem
David Flippo, a small business owner, dropped a repeat bid for the state’s 4th Congressional District to run for the Northern Nevada seat. He has racked up endorsements from big national MAGA names, including Turning Point Action and Rep. Paul Gosar.
That’s a familiar profile. Las Vegas-based candidate. Firebrand positioning. Thin local roots in the North.
We’ve seen this movie. We know how it ends in Washoe.
Trump’s double-digit margins in the North were built on a decade of personal branding; Flippo is a Southern Nevada transplant trying to draft off a momentum that isn’t his. To assume a ‘red meat’ firebrand like Flippo inherits that 7-point lead is to assume he can command the same cult-of-personality loyalty as Trump while running against a hometown Reno favorite like Teresa Benitez-Thompson.
It’s a fatal miscalculation. Sam Brown could tell you so. Flippo wants Trump’s numbers when he can’t even secure his endorsement.
Meanwhile, TBT is tapping into a statewide network of donors she’s built over 12 years, and Flippo is essentially running a one-man bank, with 95% of his ‘support’ coming from his own pocket or out-of-state interests. A profile that suggests his ‘movement’ hasn’t actually moved anyone in the 2nd District to open their wallets.
What Conservatives Should Do
The good news is real. Former state Sen. James Settelmeyer is the presumptive favorite, and Amodei himself will appear at fundraising events for him. Settelmeyer is a genuine Northern Nevadan with deep district roots, a solid conservative record, and local donor support that reflects real grassroots enthusiasm.
He is the kind of candidate who can hold against a watershed in Washoe without handing Democrats the contrast they’re looking for.
The primary is June 9. Republicans who want to keep this seat need to back the candidate who can win the general — not just fire up a CPAC crowd.
TBT has a map. The question is whether Republicans nominate someone who can read one, too.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article erroneously indicated Rory McShane ran Chattah’s 2022 campaign; McShane denies this and points to public records confirming he was simply a donor.
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.
