Mark Amodei

Mark Amodei is leaving Congress after 15 years without endorsing the Republican who wants his seat. That alone makes Northern Nevada's CD2 race one to watch. So I invited both candidates, Republican David Flippo, retired Air Force colonel and oil and gas executive, and Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson, former social worker and State Assembly leader, to sit at my dining room table for an hour.

Besides discussing policy, I wanted to help readers understand their personal experiences, habits of mind and the kind of moral values each possess.

Following are portions of their answers to the similar questions I asked of both.

Early life experiences?

Teresa Benitez-Thompson: "My recollection of growing up in Northern Nevada is strong family, with everyone pitching in to help everyone out, knowing that when life threw you surprises, your family comes back and pulls together to make it work. Sometimes we needed the support of a safety net."

David Flippo: "I come from a family of military service. I've seen so much in my life and spent so much time overseas as a kid. When you see all these countries and then you get back to America and it's 180 degrees opposite of what you just left, then you know why our country is so special."

Moral values?

David Flippo: "Basic Christian values guide my moral character and integrity and service. Do unto others as they would have you do unto them. You may not agree with everyone, but you should treat them fairly. It's something the military taught me as a commander."

Teresa Benitez-Thompson: "I think what it means to be part of a community is that it's not just you looking out for yourself and your family. You're worried about the world around you, and the world around me was Northern Nevada."

Know the district?

Teresa Benitez-Thompson: "There's not a part of the district I haven't been to before. I worked in different rural counties as a social worker. If I'm elected, I will know on Day One how to meet their needs and how to be an advocate for them."

David Flippo: "There's the policy issues, obviously: water and land, the natural resources that we have, the pristine nature of Lake Tahoe, and how we need to maintain those things. Getting out and talking to people in the district, they have been honest in sharing information and getting me up to speed."

Campaign message?

David Flippo: "I'm a constitutional, free-market conservative. The federal government needs to take care of their business; let the states do theirs. To me, the best decisions are made at the most local level possible. I talk this way to the moderates, independents and the nonpartisans, and it resonates with them."

Teresa Benitez-Thompson: "My message is that we need a congressperson who's going to focus on what our needs are in Northern Nevada. We have to get back to thinking about our communities and what families need in a community to thrive."

Data centers in Nevada?

David Flippo: "I'll go back to my constitutional free-market position. Are data centers a federal issue or a state issue or a county issue? So the counties and cities can decide if they want them or not. If the city of Reno is against data centers, you have to take them as the local representative closest to the people. And I'd help stand in front of that bulldozer."

Teresa Benitez-Thompson: "I would not support any federal legislation that would preempt Nevada from making the decisions that it needs to make for itself, specifically related to water and utility issues. Congress would be derelict in its duties if it did not address AI policy and protections. Everyone was a decade behind trying to regulate social media, so Congress needs to act quickly."

What kind of Congress member?

Teresa Benitez-Thompson: "We have an opportunity to send an authentic Northern Nevada voice to D.C., and it's our one and only opportunity to send someone who knows our neighborhoods, who knows our communities, who knows what it means to be from our unique region."

David Flippo: "I think that we need to work on the water issue. We have to have successes in the next two years. I'm just going to be honest with you: Water issues are going to have an impact on Nevada. Show me the facts, and let's make a decision."

My view of CD2

By most accounts, Mark Amodei represented Northern Nevada's congressional district quite well. A native Nevadan with strong local roots, he worked especially hard to grasp land and natural resource issues. Over the length of his career, Mark worked closely with Nevada's other members of the House and the U.S. Senate, who in recent years were almost exclusively of the other political party.

Either CD2 candidate will face serious challenges if elected. Both will be part of a large freshman class and will be at the bottom of a seniority-based, totem-pole culture that produces little more than a partisan-charged atmosphere that seems hell-bent on making gridlock the new national political pastime.

Because of politically dominated redistricting every 10 years, the foxes on both sides of the political aisle have pretty much made the henhouse their private den when it comes to politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians. The result: Political district boundaries drawn to favor whichever political party commands the most power.

In the case of Nevada, the northern congressional district lines were done by Democrats in control at the time, to give CD2 a distinct Republican registration advantage, while Nevada's other congressional districts were drawn with a decidedly Democrat advantage.

The latest 2026 Nevada Secretary of State voter registration numbers for CD2 show there are: 224,000 Republicans, 146,000 Democrats, and more than 285,000 nonpartisans and other political party members registered to vote in the district.

This means that for Benitez-Thompson to win, she will need significant support from moderate Republicans and nonpartisan voters, along with a strong, almost tsunami-like "blue" midterm election wave, if she hopes to overcome the voter registration advantage that favors Flippo.

By not endorsing Flippo, over concerns about the former Air Force lieutenant colonel "parachuting in" to the district at the last minute, Amodei’s unwillingness to endorse Flippo may have given Democrats an opening they did not expect in this race.

One candidate knows who he is but is still learning the district. The other knows the district but must win over voters who don't share her party. November will tell us which gap is easier to close.

In what may shape up to be a close race — your vote will certainly matter.

What do you think? Email me at [email protected].

"Memo from the Middle" is an opinion column written by Pat Hickey, a member of the Nevada Legislature from 1996 to 2016.