How a Republican lost a congressional race in a district a Democrat had never won

Earlier this year, longtime Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada unexpectedly announced his retirement, though his party wasn’t too concerned about holding on to the seat. Not only is this a congressional district that Donald Trump carried two years ago by 14 points, but voters in Nevada’s 2nd District have also quite literally never elected a Democrat.

That is, until now. The Nevada Independent reported:

Teresa Benitez-Thompson became the first Democrat ever to win Northern Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District as a nationwide blue wave slammed into Nevada.

The social worker, former pageant queen and former Assembly majority leader defeated small-business owner David Flippo (R) in a district President Donald Trump won by double digits.

With roughly 93% of the ballots tallied, Benitez-Thompson appears to have prevailed by a roughly 6-point margin, and MS NOW has called the race.

The results come a few weeks after Amodei, the outgoing congressman, reiterated that he would “absolutely not” vote for Flippo, his own party’s nominee.

Why not? As it turns out, Flippo has been accused of repeatedly exaggerating his military record — he’s said he received a Bronze Star for valor, for example, which did not happen — and falsely having claimed to have served during Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s. (Flippo denied any wrongdoing and blamed his claims about his military record on clerical errors.)

Mother Jones also reported last month on Flippo having been fired as a financial adviser two years ago, after his employer accused him of “willful misrepresentations and/or omissions of material fact” (Flippo’s campaign did not respond to Mother Jones’ request for comment about his firing).

Amodei nevertheless called his own party’s nominee to succeed him “a fraud.” A majority of voters in Nevada’s 2nd District appear to have come to a similar conclusion and elected their first Democratic member of Congress — ever.

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