Flippo campaign credited $3,500 donation to deceased Nevada donor

Amodei labels GOP nominee ‘a fraud,’ declines endorsement

The campaign of Republican David Flippo, the GOP nominee for Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District, credited a $3,500 donation to a Las Vegas community leader who died in 2024, according to amended Federal Election Commission filings reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The donation was attributed to Joyce Mack, a community leader and well-known philanthropist in Las Vegas whose family name adorns the Thomas & Mack Center arena at the University of Las Vegas. The original contribution had come from her daughter, Marilynn Mack, in the amount of $7,000 — twice the limit federal law allows an individual donor to give a candidate per election, according to the filings. Rather than return the excess, the campaign amended the disclosures to attribute $3,500 of the gift to Joyce Mack.

When asked about the entry by the Journal, Flippo campaign spokesman Rory McShane called it a “clerical error” and said the campaign filed a further amendment that put half of Marilynn Mack’s donation toward debt from the primary and half toward the general election. Marilynn Mack did not respond to inquiries from the paper.

The reattribution marked the latest in a series of campaign-finance and personal-disclosure issues for the campaign, including missed deadlines for financial disclosures and retracted claims about military awards, drawing public criticism from within the Republican Party. Retiring Rep. Mark Amodei, who has held the 2nd District seat for 15 years, said he would not endorse Flippo and labeled him a fraud.

“I’m proud of the fact that I’m a Republican, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to step in front of basically a fraud freight train and go, ‘Well, it’s a Republican freight train, so it isn’t going to hurt when it splatters me all over the tracks,’” Amodei said in an interview.

The Flippo campaign did not immediately respond to a request from the Journal to comment on Amodei’s remarks. Amodei has cited unanswered questions about the candidate’s finances and a lack of history with the district as reasons he will not support Flippo. Flippo relocated to the district from Las Vegas to run in a seat that had been viewed as safer for the GOP.

The 2nd Congressional District, which stretches from Reno to the state’s desert border with Utah, has been solidly Republican for years. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its rating of the seat from Solid Republican to Likely Republican during the general-election campaign. Cook said “Republicans’ polarizing nominee, David Flippo, has given Democrats an outside chance at flipping this seat.”

Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson is the Democratic nominee. An independent candidate, Lynn Chapman, is running as an alternative to Flippo, potentially dividing conservatives. Republican groups said they were confident that conservative voters in the district will pick Flippo in November.

President Trump endorsed Flippo in the primary, helping him rise through a crowded Republican field. The Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. has spent $31,000 on digital advertising against Benitez-Thompson in the race.

Flippo, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, has contributed $1.8 million of his own money to his campaign but has never filed a personal-finance disclosure with the clerk of the House of Representatives. He also didn’t file financial disclosures in the previous years he ran for Congress. After local media pressed the issue, his campaign sent the Nevada Independent an unsigned draft disclosure that listed his net worth as between $3.2 million and $14.5 million. The draft reported holdings in an entity called “America First Home Mortgage” and in “AZ Land Reserve PPM,” described in the filing as located in Meadview, Ariz., a rural community near Lake Mead and the Grand Canyon’s western rim.

His campaign has also faced scrutiny over claims about his military service. Campaign emails said Flippo earned the Bronze Star for valor, an award given for conduct in direct combat. Flippo did earn a Bronze Star in 2004, but the award did not carry the “valor” designation. At a press conference in Reno late last month, he apologized for the error and blamed video editors and copywriters on his campaign who, he said, had mixed up the awards.