Compared to NV’s other U.S. House races, CD4 flies under the radar

“Although former Vice President Kamala Harris carried this seat by just two points in 2024, the 4th District isn’t a particularly high priority for either party,” reads the Cook Political Report’s thumbnail analysis of the race between incumbent Nevada Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford and Republican challenger Cody Whipple.

Democrats held a nearly 6 percentage point advantage in registered active voters over Republicans as of August, according to the secretary of state’s office. 

That might not sound like a lot, but it’s enough to make it the most Democratic-heavy of Nevada’s four congressional districts. Since CD4 was created after the 2010 census, a Republican has only won it once, in 2014. 

The lion’s share of registered voters in the district live in northern portions of Clark County, including Mesquite. The district also covers Nye, Esmaralda, and Mineral counties, along with portions of Churchill, Lyon, and Lincoln counties.

Whipple is a rancher and businessman in the latter.

In two of the three U.S. House seats currently held by Nevada Democrats, Donald Trump endorsed Republican challengers during the primary, and they each won, as Trump-endorsed Republican primary candidates almost always do.

Those two nominees — Carrie Buck in Nevada’s 1st Congressional District, held by Dina Titus, and Marty O’Donnell in the 3rd, where he’s challenging incumbent Susie Lee —  have since been named to the National Republican Congressional Committee “MAGA Majority” list, which means the NRCC has used its national organizing capacity to provide or encourage financial support to Buck and O’Donnell.

Trump didn’t endorse Whipple or any other Republican in CD4. And the NRCC did not put Whipple on the MAGA Majority list.

When in Las Vegas in August, Trump gave a shoutout to multiple Republicans, including Buck, O’Donnell, and a third Republican Trump endorsed during the primary, David Flippo in CD2. 

Whipple was at the event, but Trump didn’t namecheck him.

Flippo had started the 2026 campaign cycle in the primary with Whipple for Nevada’s 4th Congressional District, but relocated his hopes for a political future to CD2 after incumbent Republican Mark Amodei announced he was retiring from the House.

During Flippo’s momentary stint as a 2026 CD4 candidate, he and Whipple mixed it up a little. The Nye County Republican Party, which had endorsed Flippo, called on Whipple to drop out of the race, charging Whipple changed his primary residence from a Las Vegas metro area address to one in Lincoln County shortly before launching his candidacy.

Whipple dismissed the residency issue as “an attack by David Flippo and his team, nothing more.”

(Ironically, similar complaints would fly Flippo’s way over his rushed relocation to Reno to run in CD4.) 

On the day of the Trump Las Vegas visit, Whipple issued a statement saying Horsford “voted against his own constituents on essential tax relief — including keeping taxes off tips, overtime pay, and senior benefits.” 

Each of the items Whipple mentioned were references to measures in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill that was passed by Republicans in Congress in 2025. 

“He didn’t vote that way because it helps Nevadans,” Whipple said, but because Horsford’s “D.C. party bosses demanded it.”

Horsford and other Democrats voted against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill for multiple reasons, including cuts to Medicaid funding that now threaten the viability of rural hospitals.

 “While the ultra-wealthy locked in permanent tax relief under Republicans’ so-called ‘one big beautiful bill,’ working people were offered temporary and inadequate relief,” Horsford said in one of many broadsides launched at the Trump-backed legislation since its enactment. 

In February, Horsford introduced legislation that would, among other things, make “no tax on tips,” currently scheduled to expire after the 2028 tax year, permanent. Horsford’s bill would also eliminate the Trump bill’s so-called “marriage penalty,” by raising the tips tax deduction cap from $25,000 to $50,000 for joint filers.

Though Whipple attended the Trump event in Las Vegas, the rancher has also disagreed with Trump publicly. After Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in June, Trump was touting the idea that Congress could enact legislation restricting birthright citizenship.

“The courts have made it clear that birthright citizenship is settled law under the 14th Amendment,” Whipple said in a statement to the Current in July, adding “our time is better spent securing our borders to prevent human trafficking and smuggling after years of neglect.”

Horsford’s campaign had raised more than $3 million in the 2026 cycle as of June 30 and had $1.5 million on hand. 

Whipple’s campaign had reported almost $900,000 as of June 30, including $300,000 he loaned to it, with $285,000 on hand.

Of the three Nevada U.S. House seats held by incumbents, two are listed by Cook Political Report and other ratings organizations as “leaning” Democratic, while only one is ranked “likely” Democratic — Horsford’s.