Scandal-Plagued Nevada Republican David Flippo Loses Nevada House Race

Since being established in 1982, Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District has never sent a Democrat to Washington. When Republican Rep. Mark Amodei announced earlier this year that he was retiring after representing the northern Nevada district since 2011, there was little reason to believe that would change. Yet on Tuesday, Teresa Benitez-Thompson, a social worker and former state assembly leader, did what seemed nearly impossible only months ago: She turned the district blue. 

Benitez-Thompson’s Republican opponent was named, appropriately enough, David Flippo. His campaign was plagued by scandal, misrepresentations about his military and professional record, and all but inevitable allegations of carpetbagging. Flippo was running for a congressional seat in Las Vegas as of earlier this year when he hightailed it to Reno after Amodei declined to run for reelection. He had no prior connection to a district that covers a vast swath of Nevada larger than the state of Georgia.

In the primary, Flippo defeated James Settelmeyer—a rancher and former state senate minority leader whose family has been in northern Nevada since the 19th century—with the help of a well-timed endorsement from Donald Trump. As the general election approached, reporting by Mother Jones, newspapers including The Washington Post, and the conservative outlet Nevada News & Views raised numerous concerns about Flippo’s candidacy. 

It was not for nothing that Benitez-Thompson compared her opponent to disgraced former New York Rep. George Santos when I interviewed her in Reno in the final days of the race. Amodei repeatedly called Flippo a “fraud” owing to the false claims about Flippo’s military service and the questions about the candidate’s personal finances. The congressman told me at his Nevada home last month that Flippo was the first Republican he could recall not supporting. (Amodei voted for a third-party candidate.)

Flippo’s manifold liabilities and Benitez-Thompson’s strengths came together in a year that was already unfavorable to Republicans thanks to a distracted president whose idea of a closing message was to talk about renovating a big pool. That turned out to be the story across the nation. In a year in which Republicans needed to send their best to mitigate the chaos caused by Donald Trump, they sent a series of Flippos who won primaries thanks to Trump endorsements earned through performative blind loyalty. (In May, with Nevada gas prices averaging around $5.20 per gallon as a result of the Iran war, Flippo gave Trump’s second term an A+.)

By Election Day, the sheer number of falsehoods and scandals surrounding Flippo and his campaign became hard to track. They included:  

• The Washington Post reporting that Flippo’s campaign falsely claimed on numerous occasions that Flippo earned a Bronze Star with valor, when he actually earned the far more common standard Bronze Star for his service during the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• Reporting by me and conservative outlet Nevada News & Views showing that Flippo repeatedly wore a hat with “valor devices” that implied he earned a Bronze Star with valor. (Flippo blamed his grandchildren for putting the V-shaped emblems on his hat)
• The Reno Gazette Journal revealing that Flippo was relieved of command of an Air Force squadron in Alaska in 2008
• Flippo falsely claiming that he served “in the desert” in 1991 when he was actually a student at Montana State University during Operation Desert Storm
• Flippo downplaying the circumstances under which he was fired as a financial adviser in 2024 after being accused of making “willful misrepresentations and/or omissions of material fact to establish a client relationship”
• Flippo failing to file four legally required congressional financial disclosures between 2023 and 2026
• Flippo reporting that he had put more than $2.5 million of his own money into his congressional campaigns, despite having no obvious source of such wealth
• Reporting by me showing that Flippo had close ties to a dubious Arizona land venture that touted “constant” 20 percent annual returns for 20 years

Flippo’s response to this reporting was a mix of deflection, denial, and simply disappearing. Despite being new to the district, Flippo declined to introduce himself to voters by debating Benitez-Thompson. He rarely appeared at events that weren’t friendly to him. I repeatedly tried to interview Flippo—including when my colleague Sam Van Pykeren and I went to the district last month—but never got the chance.

Flippo’s problems were evident in the results. With more than 95 percent of votes counted, Benitez-Thompson is leading by about six points. That’s a massive shift from the 2022 midterms, when Amodei won by about 21 points. Even during Democrats’ first Trump-era blue wave in 2018, the retiring congressman won by 16 points.

And Flippo’s defeat wasn’t inevitable this year. Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who lost statewide to Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford, is leading by about six points in the counties that make up the 2nd Congressional District. Lombardo’s vote total in the district is currently about the same as Benitez-Thompson’s.

Benitez-Thompson campaigned as a moderate and was already well known in the district after representing parts of it in the state assembly for 12 years. She was also far more accessible than Flippo. When we met at a Reno dress shop as the campaign came to a close, she talked about her commitment to holding 100 town halls or other public events during her first term if elected.

I asked Benitez-Thompson if she thought Flippo would stick around in northern Nevada if he lost the election. “I think he’s packed up and back in Vegas by November 15th,” she replied. “He’s not even trying to cosplay as a Northern Nevadan.”

“I don’t know why he would keep that up after a failed election,” Benitez-Thompson added. “I don’t think he’s going to be here longer than a Halloween Spirit store is.”