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- 11 Democrats will be on the ballot for Nevada's 2nd Congressional District but two have dropped out.
- The heavily Republican district covers Nevada's top half.
- Rep. Mark Amodei has held the seat since 2011 but announced he's in February that he's retiring.
Democrats see Nevada’s northern congressional district as a rare prize possibly within reach because there’s no incumbent and big concerns over the Trump administration’s handling of the economy.
Eleven threw their hat into the ring: Teresa Benitez-Thompson, Kathy Durham, Gamy Enriquez, Matthew Fonken, Gerold Gorman, Josh Hebert, Mark Jolle, Johnny Kerns, Robert “Greg” Kidd, Morgan Wadsworth and Samuel White.
Nine remain. Hebert and White withdrew May 2 and threw their support behind Wadsworth. They will still appear on Democratic primary ballots.
No Democrat has ever won Nevada’s Second Congressional District. Republican Mark Amodei has represented it since 2011 and surprised many when he announced his retirement in February.
The Democratic primary winner will take on the top vote-getter in the Republican primary — where 13 are competing — in the November general election.
• Where is Nevada’s Second Congressional District: Anchored by the urban centers of Reno, Sparks and Carson City, the district is the state’s largest one geographically. It includes all of Churchill, Douglas, Elko, Eureka, Humboldt, Lander, Pershing, Storey, Washoe and White Pine counties, along with Carson City and most of Lyon County.
• What does U.S. House seat pay: $174,000 a year.
• When is the primary: Primary Day is June 9. Early voting runs May 23 through June 5. Mail-in primary ballots will be sent out between May 11 and 18 for residents inside the state of Nevada.
• About the CD2 Democratic candidates not included in Q&A: The Reno Gazette Journal has not included the two candidates who dropped out and two candidates who did not have websites.
Who is Teresa Benitez-Thompson running for Nevada’s CD2 U.S. House seat in 2026 Democratic primary?
- Top 3 issues: “I have just two issues: what we can afford and what we can't afford. We can't afford an administration that drives up costs while cutting funding to healthcare, food banks and education.”
- Primary residence: Reno
- Age: 47
- Education: Bachelor’s degree from the University of Nevada, Reno; master’s in social work
- Occupation: Stepped down as chief of staff to Nevada’s attorney general to run full-time for CD2.
- Political experience: Former state legislator who served as Assembly majority leader
- Family: Married with four children
- Contributions from Feb. 17 to March 31, 2026: $57,000 (cash on hand: $53,000)
- Biggest contributors: Teresa Benitez-Thompson (loan), ActBlue, Joann Loewer Robinson, Philip Satre, Richard Daly
Who is Kathy Durham running for Nevada’s CD2 U.S. House seat in 2026 Democratic primary?
- Top 3 issues: Affordability, healthcare and democracy
- Primary residence: West Wendover
- Age: 62
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in education, master’s in midlevel education
- Occupation: Public high school civics teacher
- Political experience: West Wendover City Council member 2018 to 2022, teachers union building representative
- Family: Married with 5 children, 13 grandchildren, 1 great-grandchild
- Contributions from July 22, 2025, to March 31, 2026: $15,000 (cash on hand: $4,600)
- Biggest contributors: ActBlue, Michael Durham, Janette Durham, Robert Durham, Kathy Durham
Who is Matthew Fonken running for Nevada’s CD2 U.S. House seat in 2026 Democratic primary?
- Top 3 issues: Healthcare access, public lands protection and government accountability
- Primary residence: Reno
- Age: 42
- Education: Some college focused on civil engineering and hospitality management
- Occupation: Political community organizer
- Political experience: Former executive director of the Nevada State Democratic Party; national field director for Blue Wave America leading voter engagement efforts in rural and red-district communities; former attaché to Assemblywoman Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod in Nevada Legislature.
- Family: Single
- Contributions from Oct. 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026: $60,000 (cash on hand: $7,700)
- Biggest contributors: Act Blue, Heritage Excavation, Joanne McCarthy, Blue Wave, Cynthia Mohiuddin
Who is Mark Jolle running for Nevada’s CD2 U.S. House seat in 2026 Democratic primary?
- Top 3 issues: infrastructure, housing and healthcare
- Primary residence: Reno
- Age: 47
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in anthropology
- Occupation: Small-business owner
- Political experience: First-time candidate
- Family: Married with two children
- Contributions: $0
Who is Johnny Kerns running for Nevada’s CD2 U.S. House seat in 2026 Democratic primary?
- Top 3 issues: The $39 trillion deficit and the economy, retaining Nevada's seat on the House Appropriations Committee, and restoring congressional oversight of the executive branch and launching hearings to investigate corruption
- Primary residence: Reno
- Age: 46
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in forensic psychology/justice; certified death investigator
- Occupation: retired homicide detective
- Political experience: 2022 candidate for state Senate
- Family: Not married
- Contributions: No federal financial filing
Who is Greg Kidd running for Nevada’s CD2 U.S. House seat in 2026 Democratic primary?
- Top 3 issues: Healthcare, educational reform including social media reform, U.S./Nevada accountability and leadership in the world
- Primary residence: Crystal Bay
- Age: 67
- Education: Bachelor's degree in history, master of business administration, master’s degree in public policy
- Occupation: Builder/entrepreneur
- Political experience: Ran for Nevada’s Second Congressional District in 2024, served at the Federal Reserve board of governors in Washington, D.C.
- Family: “Happily divorced” with two daughters
- Contributions Jan. 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026: $560,000 loan (cash on hand: $23,000)
- Biggest contributor: Greg Kidd
Who is Morgan Wadsworth running for Nevada’s CD2 U.S. House seat in 2026 Democratic primary?
- Top 3 issues: Money in politics, healthcare, public lands/water/environment
- Primary residence: Sparks
- Age: 27
- Education: Political science student at University of Nevada, Reno
- Occupation: Full-time student/candidate
- Political experience: First-time candidate
- Family: Engaged
- Contributions Nov. 6, 2025, to March 31, 2026: $3,600 (cash on hand: $3,200)
- Biggest contributors: Morgan Wadsworth, unitemized individual contributions
What has U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement done right?
• Benitez-Thompson: I've seen a world of hurt and chaos caused by ICE under this administration. I have very little confidence that there's going to be change. And most important to me would be an examination of federal overreach through ICE in our communities. There's a laundry list of things they've done wrong that we have to address (before looking at what it’s done right).
• Durham: The way it was presented to us, ICE is supposed to go after the hardened criminals in our country that are here without proper documentation, the bad guys that are a threat to all of us. Anytime they do that and follow due process, they are doing it right.
• Fonken: This is a difficult question to answer because I am very much opposed to ICE being in formation at this point. ICE is not necessary. We have so many policing agencies that really work to protect our communities. We need USCIS (U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services) to be better funded so they are able to process immigrants as they come into this nation, whether it's on asylum or work visas. We need to expand USCIS instead of having law enforcement such as ICE dealing with immigration. We have agencies like Border Patrol doing really solid work. We can utilize the funding from ICE to strengthen our immigration process and make sure it's expanded for the multitude of folks seeking a better life.
• Jolle: We need immigration enforcement. ICE as it currently exists, however, we do not need. This type of enforcement mechanism is something that is far too militant and is causing far too much harm. So if you want me to say something good about ICE, I don't know if I can, frankly.
• Kerns: There has always been an absence of adequate federal funding for immigration enforcement. So the current ICE directors and senior staff have embraced the moment with this administration and saw to it that they would be adequately funded at least until the government shut down. But I think appropriations is the area where ICE has done a lot right in the past few years — in making sure they got enough funding to do what they need to do.
• Kidd: What ICE has done right is they've focused on folks that are here that potentially don't have legal status and may have a criminal record. I think most everybody agrees that we should focus on people with a criminal record. They've brought attention to that issue.
• Wadsworth: It does important work in certain areas, especially through Homeland Security investigations handling serious crimes like human trafficking, child exploitation and cartel activity. That's real law enforcement work that needs to continue. I think that along those lines, they are doing things right.
What could ICE improve on?
• Benitez-Thompson: For changes we need to see implemented immediately, we don't have to look any further than our own policing standards in Northern Nevada for how ICE needs to change.
In Nevada, our law enforcement cannot cover their faces. Our law enforcement must show their badge and produce a badge when asked so that we can verify they are indeed law enforcement. We have body cameras on all of our Category 1 law enforcement. And if we have an officer-involved shooting, it's a mandated investigation by another agency. At a minimum, that's what we need.
• Durham: I am a government teacher and I teach our students that we have three separate branches of government — checks and balances — and that the purpose of government is to protect our rights. So what ICE can improve on is follow the Constitution.
If you want to search someone, come into somebody’s home, arrest somebody, you need to show that you have a proper warrant.
I have the utmost respect for law enforcement. I have family members in law enforcement. They never, ever got to go into people's homes without warrants. They never got to pull people over without valid reasons. They never got to wear a mask. They always had to show their identification. You have to follow the law. That's all I ask.
• Fonken: They can improve on making sure that masks are no longer being worn and that they're removed from the streets of our communities across the nation and our airports. They should be wearing bodycams. They should be wearing badges with their name and badge number. They should have warrants for any of the activities that they're doing. They should be held accountable, and those who have violated the law should be prosecuted. This is what they could be doing better. They could be going through law enforcement training instead of what we're seeing. They need modernized de-escalation tactics being taught to them and used in the field.
• Jolle: We didn't have ICE as it stands today until after 2001, the PATRIOT Act. If we were to take it back to immigration enforcement, that would be an improvement. We do need to have immigration enforcement, but that needs to be done at a policy level. I feel like if we were to go after employers, not the individuals, that would change things dramatically and with a lot less harm to the community and individuals.
• Kerns: With its increase in funding came hiring a bunch of new people. It takes time and years of experience to be able to do many of these jobs well, let alone adequately. So where we're failing is that we have people who aren't adequately trained and where their training lacks, it's seen in physical encounters where American citizens have been shot and beaten. You need to reinforce training of federal agents with civil rights education and what the Constitution provides the American people to protest against their government. That's where this administration has failed.
• Kidd: ICE should improve on the controls that we normally expect of any law enforcement organization. They shouldn't operate outside the law — they shouldn't be going into people's private residences without a true warrant.
They're not identified. So if they do something that's abusive, they don't have a name tag and they're masked. The fact that they've been operating on sort of a Gestapo model does not do them any service. If they're doing legitimate law enforcement, we have a tradition and policies in this country that they should be identified as law enforcement and not like a goon squad.
They haven't received the training necessary to deal with adverse situations. Also, they've been rounding up folks that don't have a criminal record so they haven't stuck to what, in theory, their focus was supposed to be.
• Wadsworth: The targeting of nonviolent individuals and family separations are a huge problem for me. The usage of administrative warrants instead of judicial warrants to search people's homes, trying to bypass the judiciary system to speed things along — I have criticisms on that. I have criticisms on the detention conditions — the level of medical care and things that they're receiving in detention centers, I'm very concerned about. And the usage of masks, I'm also concerned about.
Where has your own party has gone too far?
• Benitez-Thompson: I see the contrary. I see a Democratic base that very much would like to see more policy movement from Democrats. We want to see more robust conversations on healthcare, expanding access to healthcare and coverage for items.
We see the base wants our elected Democrats in Congress to bring forth legislation that would guarantee a woman's right to choose and make choices about her own reproductive healthcare decisions.
And I think the party needs to have real conversations about immigration reform.
In 2013, I voted on a resolution in the Nevada Legislature urging Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform. That was 13 years ago. This administration has attacked our immigrant communities. Moving forward, we have to get back to real policy conversation about immigration reform.
• Durham: They have strayed too far from the issues that matter to all of us, like how do we put food on the table. I think both parties, but my own party, get caught up in this tribalism, get caught up in labels, and it just adds to the division. We forget who we're there to serve. It’s the people.
Politics is like a pendulum. If you sway too far left, when the next group gets into power, you're going to go equally as far to the right. And when you go far to the right, it's going to swing back. That's what America has been through for these last few years. So I'd like to see my party come back to the middle.
• Fonken: Our party leadership, especially under this current administration, has sat on their thumbs and done absolutely nothing to hold this administration accountable.
Our party is beholden to their big donors, they're beholden to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), they're beholden to lobbyists for the big donors, the billionaires and the corporations that are keeping them in line. That's what's wrong with the Democratic Party leadership and representation in Congress.
• Jolle: As far as I'm concerned, the Democratic Party has not gone far enough. Anyone who says that they have is clearly a center-right person. No, we need far more from the Democratic Party than we've gotten.
• Kerns: I'm a law-and-order Democrat, so it's coming from 22 years of background in law enforcement — I certainly think concepts like defunding the police sound good. It's a good sound bite, but nobody wants to be the victim of a crime and contact the police for help and have nobody come. So the party sometimes extends their ideas beyond the realm of what is conceivable in civil society.
I'm an institutionalist as well. I don't think we should be changing the rules to accommodate the change that we want to see happen. If you have persuasive leaders and you have great leaders, they can bring about change — unfortunately, like Donald Trump — through the power of their personalities and their leadership. That's what we need more of.
• Kidd: We're big in the gambling industry obviously in Nevada, and we put a restriction on folks doing online betting unless they came (to a casino) in person. We drove online betting out of this state. Arizona does more online betting now than Nevada. And we’re trying to do the same thing with prediction markets. Managing this at the state level is like running around and messing with barn doors when the horses are already out.
The Democratic Party in Nevada sometimes is so out of touch with technology that they don't understand this out-of-the-barn situation has already occurred. So it ends up being a performative exercise. I want Democrats to modernize their understanding of how technology works. I want things regulated, but some things can't be effectively regulated at the state level. Stop trying to do that and get to work at the federal level.
• Wadsworth: The Democratic Party makes a lot of room for centrist and moderates. We don't really make room for the more progressive side of things. It keeps shifting further and further to the right. The Democratic Party, in my mind, should be the opposition party, the more left party.
A lot of times we go too far on the Democrat side with how we handle the Middle East, how we handle corporate spending and how we handle the AIPAC and Israel situations. The Democrats in Congress are not really listening to their constituents and they'll just say yes to a lot of the wartime spending, despite the fact that statistically many Americans — and even more so on the Democrat side — are not on board with that. So I really think the Democratic Party needs to get a handle on the war hawkishness of the party.
How would you handle competing interests over public lands in Northern Nevada involving environmental and tribal concerns along with mining and ranching interests?
• Benitez-Thompson: When I was actually out in rural Nevada last week, I went to Wells and I spoke with a rancher there about the tension that you can often feel between ranchers and the Bureau of Land Management or the Forestry Department. We had lots of conversations around fuel mitigation and management and the great concerns for fires out there.
There is common ground to work from. There are collaborative management partnerships that can be productive for all the stakeholders, but you have to have leadership that's willing to engage in those type of conversations community by community. At the federal level, we see this administration zeroing out resources that are vital to Nevada. We see programs to prevent fire being devastated in the president's proposed budget. It shows us that this administration is not willing to have collaborative conversations.
• Durham: We have to get all interests at the same table. You’ve got to get the tribal people, the government people, the environmentalists, the ranchers, and the miners and mining companies at the table. And they're going to have to understand that everybody is going to have to compromise and sacrifice.
You have to always put people over profit, and we have to put communities over corporations and greed. Those have to be our guiding principles. And we have to think several generations down the road. How is this going to impact them? Because we might be able to make quick gains but are we going to be able to sustain it?
We can never be shortsighted. All policy needs to be made with people and communities in mind — and sustainability.
• Fonken: It's important to have the right stakeholders at the table so the voices of Nevadans are heard across the board, especially tribal communities.
The straw on the camel's back for me to run was that Mark Amodei put up all the public lands for sale in the Big Beautiful Bill, from the Ruby Mountains to Lake Tahoe. I've talked to many Republicans across this district that are livid he tried to do that because it's a way of life for Nevadans who use it for grazing cattle, for hunting and fishing, and just outdoor activities.
Private special interests wanted states opened up so they could buy the public lands and come in and reap the land with no benefits to the people. Our public lands must be managed responsibly and protected. The public lands are the people's lands, and they should have a voice in what's done with them.
• Jolle: I used to be an archaeologist here. I'm well aware that public lands are free to use by ranching and mining interests, by developers, those kind of things. So I feel like they are already accessible as long as they can be used in a responsible way. That means environmentally, ecologically and archaeologically, preserving history.
As far as Native Americans go, I support the Land Back movement. It is basically the idea that we should be ceding those lands that were historically theirs — and theirs by treaty — back to them. That does not mean they are not going to develop things the same way as now. Deals can be reached for mineral extraction or other such things, but we have a terrible track record with that and they may have a better track record. It's about righting historical wrongs.
• Kerns: A state like Nevada needs to have their interest balanced more heavily in favor of the state because we have so much land in the hands of the federal government. The federal government can afford to be more generous and show more grace in making sure we protect the interests of our tribal and rural populations.
This is an area where you need the right advocate in Congress to ensure that when we go to the table with the federal government in talking about dispositive actions toward our federal lands, you have somebody there who's a fighter and is going to ensure that the interests of everyday Nevadans are at the table and not just the mining interests, special interests for tax incentives and these big companies that just want to gobble up the land and build shill public housing places where they can aggregate more wealth.
• Kidd: Within Nevada, there’s always going to be a fight between conservationists, folks who want to use it for ranching or mining, and then folks who want to use it for recreation like dune buggies. You’ve also got wild horse people, bighorn sheep people. Then you've got tribal claims, etc. I don't have a solution. They're all constituents. They're going to have to argue for their fair share, but what I don't think we should be doing is what happened under Mark (Amodei), which is he was going to sell off the land and take the proceeds and use it to pay for tax breaks for people like me.
Whatever is being done with the land in Nevada, there shouldn’t be any deal that doesn't have some benefit to the local people affected by that land policy. It's Nevada people who live here and rely on it.
• Wadsworth: I'm an environmental science minor, and I've lived in Nevada my whole life. My family has been ranchers for multiple generations. The issues of public lands are not one size fits all. That's kind of the issue. A lot of congressmen try to find a one-size-fits-all solution. There's no nuance. With public land policy for Nevada, we have to start from reality. We have multiple groups with legitimate stakes, and it's not our job to pick one and ignore the other.
A lot of these conflicts get worse because decisions are made top down. We need more local input.
We need to have meaningful tribal consultation and consent with any projects that affect tribal land or sacred sites. We need responsible development with more modern standards around water use, land restoration and long-term environmental impact. And we need to protect our critical ecosystems and water resources.
Candidate responses were edited for length and clarity from phone interviews.
Mark Robison is the state politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal, with occasional forays into other topics. Email comments to