Trump-Tapped Flippo Poised to Take GOP Nod in Deep Red Nevada House Primary

RENO, Nev.—Financial adviser and Iraq War combat veteran Dave Flippo appears to have defeated longtime state lawmaker James Settelmeyer in their deep-red Congressional District 2 (CD 2) Republican primary and will enter the general election as a heavy November favorite in a Nevada district that has never sent a Democrat to Washington.

Flippo, riding President Donald Trump’s May 29 endorsement, was leading the 13-candidate GOP pack by more than 7,500 votes—by 10.4 percentage points—with 83 percent of the tally counted at 1 a.m. PDT, and the Nevada secretary of state is unlikely to update those numbers until morning.

At that point, he’d garnered more than 33,000 votes, or 45.7 percent of ballots cast, with Settelmeyer netting just under 25,500 votes, or 35.3 percent, in their June 9 CD 2 primary to succeed the retiring eight-term Rep. Mark Amodei, Nevada’s lone congressional Republican.

Decision Desk HQ, Politico, and several local and state media outlets had declared Flippo the winner, but as of 1:30 a.m.—with counted ballots remaining at 83 percent for more than two hours—The Associated Press had not confirmed a victor in the CD 2 Republican race.

Sensing victory with a 10 percentage point lead and with less than 17 percent of cast ballots uncounted, Flippo was ready to move on to the general election.

“Now the real fight begins. We haven’t earned anything yet,” he told supporters at around 11 p.m. at the Washoe County Republican Party’s offices in Reno. “We will earn the full support of northern Nevada by delivering real results in the general election.”

He reiterated campaign pledges.

“I will cut taxes, unleash American energy to lower costs and create jobs, protect our Second Amendment rights, secure our borders, and support our allies and Israel, and put Nevada families first,” he said.

Flippo will face former state lawmaker Teresa Benitez-Thompson, who eclipsed Greg Kidd, an entrepreneur and 2024 independent CD 2 candidate, in the Democrats’ CD 2 primary. Benitez-Thompson will be a prohibitive November underdog in a Republican stronghold within the purple battleground state, a 65,000-square-mile district where the GOP has a 65,000-registered voter advantage.

“Our philosophy was the same at the end of this race as it was on day one, which was take the message to the people and connect with people directly as much as we can,” she said in a video statement thanking voters. “We get to move on. The work begins tomorrow.”

While mining projects, water development, federal public lands management, education policies, and rural health programs are among concerns northern Nevadans want their congressional representatives to address, those were not the top issues dogging, if not defining, campaigns for the two frontrunners in the waning days of CD 2’s inter-party slugfest.

Flippo, who began his 24-year U.S. Air Force career as an enlisted technician and retired a lieutenant colonel, faced challenges in overcoming claims he’s an interloping opportunist who moved into a congressional district he knew little about solely to run for its open seat as a MAGA adherent pushing the president’s agenda.

Fourth-generation rancher and former Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Director Settelmeyer, endorsed by Amodei and Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, was the marginal favorite before Trump’s nod boosted Flippo, stumping on his 18 years in the state Legislature as a small government “common sense” fiscal conservative, and touting his legislative record, including as a network-building Senate minority leader.

Flippo thanked his opponents for running a strong race.

“Public service is a noble calling, and I respect every person willing to put themselves out there for their community,” he said.

A Matter of Record

The same legislative record Settelmeyer promoted drew scrutiny and scorn from MAGA conservatives for being moderate, if not progressive. Flippo told The Epoch Times it’s why he opted not to run again in CD 4, where he lost the 2024 Republican primary, and moved to Reno in early 2026 to run for Amodei’s open CD 2 seat.

“This is an R+7 seat that Trump won by 17 [percentage points in 2024], so this [district] deserves a strong conservative, and we were looking at, like, James Settelmeyer? A very low 63 CPAC score. A B-plus rating by Planned Parenthood,” he said.

Flippo formally entered the race after no one he regarded as capable and conservative, such as 2024 GOP U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown, appeared ready to challenge Settelmeyer for Amodei’s seat.

“That was one of the decisions in the calculus of it, right? It’s like I’d already understood the rural issues because CD 4 had a lot of similar rural issues–there’s farming, there’s ranching, there’s mining. Everybody has water issues here in Nevada, right?” he said.

“We looked at everything, looked at the calculus, looked at who was running, and saw there was need for a strong conservative to get in this race. The things that he voted for were not representative of what his district would have wanted him to vote for. The issue is that he’s never been held accountable. He was very surprised that I held him accountable to his voting record.”

Flippo said on June 5 he had spoken with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) about potential committee assignments.

“Obviously, Ag and Natural Resources,” he said. “Energy would be a good one, because I have some experience there [as an Alaska oil field maintenance supervisor]. We have energy issues here in Nevada, so sure, and then something with veterans.”

As a House freshman, especially if Democrats win the chamber in November, “I’d be lucky to get one of my four,” he said.

Amodei’s seat is among 58 of 435 seats being vacated by incumbents, including 36 Republicans, who are not seeking 2026 reelection, in a House where the GOP holds a 217–212 majority. A Democrat has never won CD 2 since Nevada gained a second district in the 1980 Census and its first representative was seated in 1983.

In addition to shedding “carpetbagger” luggage, Flippo had to overcome claims he was running to serve a national MAGA constituency and was not as versed or vested in northern Nevada issues as was Settelmeyer, who’s been hooked into the region’s GOP circuitry for decades.

He also dismissed concerns about being a novice lawmaker after winning his first election.

“I was in the military for 24 years,” he said. “After dealing with that bureaucracy, I’ve figured out how to make the sausage.”

What’s Next

Flippo outlined his support for revamped mining regulations and accelerated permitting for the state’s gold, uranium, lithium, and tungsten projects, and detailed priorities in water development, federal public lands management, and energy policy.

Most of CD 2 is in the Great Basin Desert with aquifers fed by runoff from the Sierra Nevada’s eastern flanks. Landowner water rights must be protected, he said, while in the broader context of the state and the West, Congress “needs to relook” at the Colorado River Compact, “which is, right now, 104-years-old,” he said.

To relieve pressure on the Colorado River, which waters seven states, Flippo said Congress may need to preempt state restrictions on reservoirs, such as those imposed by Colorado.

“If they could build reservoirs, then Denver could pull less water off the Colorado, and if Denver could pull less Colorado water, that would bring more water downstream,” he said, calling for accelerating “things we need to start working on, [such as] desalination plants, because Powell and Lake Mead, they’re evaporating water faster than they can gain it, so it’s a big issue.”

More than 86 percent of Nevada is federal public land, so agency management policies and actions are “always a contentious issue around here,” Flippo said, expressing support for Republican-led efforts in the House to cede more land-management control of federal lands to state agencies.

He’s cautious about “releasing it all at once [to state control]. I think that would decimate the economy in Nevada,” he said, vowing before agreeing to any transfer of authority he’d “get the counties involved.”

“That’s where it gets down to listening to the commissioners, listening to city councils, and coming in with the right solutions for these issues, whether it’s water, whether it’s mineral rights, or the ranching, the land management, all that,” he added.

Flippo said Congress needs to develop five-year plans to end the upheavals of “managing with executive orders.”

“We have to codify it in law” so investors, industry, and state and local governments have surety to be innovative, he said.

“We need a long-range energy plan so that businesses have stability, and they know what to predict.”

He said it takes seven years for a producing oil rig to become profitable and 15 years to pay back investors for a $30 billion refinery.

“What oil company is going to invest when a new president can come in and just turn it off, right?” he said.

Flippo enters the race as a heavy favorite in deep red CD 2, but Washoe County Republican Committee Chair Bruce Parks warned he has “a hard battle in front of him” in squaring off against Benitez-Thompson, who has served 12 years in the Nevada Assembly.

Democrats “have plenty of resources and they will do everything they can to win this race,” he said. “If you think as a Republican that you got this in the bag if you win the primary, you’re a fool.”

“I want to make a difference with this country so we’re not taking it for granted in any way,” Flippo said. “We’re still fighting, we got our foot on the gas.”