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Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Dave Flippo knows a thing or two about winning a fight. During his military career he deployed around the world, including serving as a maintenance and logistics officer in Iraq during the lead up to the 2003 invasion. Currently, he’s locked in a tough battle in a Republican-leaning open swing district comprising an enormous chunk of northern Nevada.
Nevada may be the best bellwether state west of the Mississippi. It’s a hotly contested state with a booming economy and an exploding population marked by a familiar theme in politics: a stark divide between its rural and urban populations.
WASHINGTON – MAY 23: David Flippo, then a Republican candidate for Nevada’s 4th Congressional district, speaks to Republicans gathered for the Freedom Rally and Candidate Roundup at the Ahern Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev., on Thursday, May 23, 2024. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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Trump won Nevada by a modest margin in 2024, and Governor Joe Lombardo defeated a Democrat incumbent in 2022. Yet three of its four congressional districts are blue, as are both of its Senate seats. The Democrats hold both chambers of the state legislature by large margins.
Flippo won the Republican nomination despite having a well-known establishment-backed primary opponent in the Nevada legislature:
“Well, up in the north, it’s an R+7 district, and Trump won that district by 14. It’s a conservative district. And running against the establishment versus a conservative candidate who had been endorsed by Turning Point, Club for Growth, President Trump endorsed me. Obviously, the conservative people in the northern Nevada area wanted a conservative in this seat.”
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo speaks during a ceremonial groundbreaking for the $1.75 billion, 33,000-seat domed stadium for Major League Baseball’s Athletics on June 23, 2025, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The ballpark is being built on nine acres of the 35-acre former site of the Tropicana Las Vegas, which was imploded in October 2024. The A’s expect to have the ballpark ready for Opening Day in 2028. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Having never held elected office, Flippo presents his newcomer status as an advantage, rather than a liability:
“I beat the establishment. I think people are tired of the establishment politicians, the politicians that…are there just to be a moderate, be that middle ground. I think we need fighters in Congress.
“I think we need people in Congress that are ready to stand up, stand up for the American people, and here in Nevada, stand up for Nevadans.”
Flippo spent much of his military career in the Middle East. He argues that Trump’s Iran policy is ending a war, not starting one:
“What President Trump is doing with the Strait of Hormuz and Iran, this has been a 47-year conflict. Some in the media have been saying that Trump is starting a forever war, but in my opinion, he’s ending it.
“Most all of my career was in the Middle East, fighting because of Iran and what they’re doing with Israel and with Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis. What Iran has done is over, and things are going to change, and President Trump sees that.
President Donald Trump (Getty Images)
“I fully support what President Trump is doing. We need to open up the strait, it needs to be a clear waterway. We need the flow of oil to start again.”
The voters of northern Nevada want a constitutional conservative, Flippo argues, and he is prepared to deliver results on budgetary issues, as the exploding national debt approaches $40 trillion.
“We have to get to a balanced budget. We have to get this deficit under control. What are we, $39 trillion in debt now and it keeps climbing? Something has to be done. We have to stop spending money that we don’t have.
“We need to stop expanding government. And that’s what’s been happening over the years. We just keep expanding and expanding. You know, I’m a constitutional conservative: government has four purposes and if you go beyond those four purposes, it belongs to the states.
“And the government has taken on so much now that we just keep getting more and more in debt. And it’s time that we have representatives in Congress that are ready to stop that.”
Illegal immigration is a signature issue for Flippo, who paints the problem in economic terms, and is concerned about its impact on a variety of pressing public policy issues.
“lllegal immigration is a problem in the United States. And if you look at what’s happened in the last six years under Biden and the open borders policies and the 20 to 30 million people that were allowed to come in, what has that done? It’s caused housing costs to go up.
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“That’s a supply and demand issue. 20 million people. That’s 20 cities the size of Las Vegas, right? What does that mean? That means all those schools, the police departments, the fire departments, all those social service programs. All that has to be paid for by tax dollars, by taxpayers. 20 cities the size of Las Vegas, 40 cities the size of Reno. That’s a lot. That’s a lot to ask for the taxpayers to come in all at once.”
While the district leans Republican, the Democrats believe they have fielded a formidable candidate in former Nevada Assembly Majority Leader Teresa Benitez-Thompson. Flippo is not taking anything for granted, but believes the contrast between his conservative outlook and her left-wing voting record will play to his advantage.
RENO, NV – APRIL 4: The downtown skyline featuring the Eldorado, Silver Legacy and Circus Circus Hotels and Casinos, now owned and managed by Caesars Entertainment, is viewed from a nearby hilltop looking east on April 4, 2022, in Reno, Nevada. Reno, located in the northwest corner of Nevada at the junctions of Interstate 80 and Highway 395, continues to struggle from the effects of a housing boom and migration, a serious homeless population, Covid-19, and the impact of Indian gaming in California, which has placed a major burden on Reno’s entertainment, recreation, food service and accommodations business sectors, particularly in the downtown area. (George Rose/Getty Images)
“She’s a big government [supporter], big spender. She’s voted to raise taxes 12 times here in Nevada. She voted for the largest tax increase in Nevada’s history. She voted for Planned Parenthood funding. She voted for drivers licenses for illegals. I mean, she has a voting record that she says she’s very proud of. And I don’t believe that’s something to be proud of.”
Finally, Flippo believes that Trump’s support is a net asset in his district, and believes that support, along with the backing of Gov. Lombardo, will carry a lot of weight.
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“My district in northern Nevada, District 2, is an R+7 that Trump won by 14. So Trump obviously carries some weight in northern Nevada. It’s a conservative part of this state, which is different than the southern part.
“Getting on a team with the governor being united, getting the vote out is going to be critical. And having Trump on my side up in the north is going to be a huge factor in winning this.”
