State Sen. Carrie Buck (R-Henderson) launched a bid for the Congressional District 1 seat held by Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) on Tuesday, pledging to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda and “renew the American Dream.”

Buck, a longtime educator and charter school leader, said in a press release that the district’s growing Republican voter base makes it flippable.

“Our communities are tired of these failed politicians who have no solutions and who are actually part of the problem,” she said in a press release. “In Congress, I’ll work alongside President Trump to lower taxes, create good-paying American jobs, restore law-and-order, and renew the American Dream for future generations.”

Buck has a background in administrative education and moved to Las Vegas in the 1990s. Hired in 2006 as principal of the C.T. Sewell Elementary School in Henderson, she oversaw huge gains in educational attainment during her eight years at the school and was awarded a Milken Educator award in 2008.

She currently serves as the president of the Pinecrest Foundation, a registered nonprofit organization that supports charter school educational initiatives, including scholarships for students. She is married to a retired Henderson Deputy Police Chief and has 4 children.

Buck entered the political scene in 2020, narrowly winning a state Senate seat, and was re-elected in 2024, defeating Democrat Jennifer Atlas in the general election by 7 percentage points. Buck, who is in the middle of her second term, has not said whether she will resign to run for Congress.

Buck was the only Senate Republican to not pass any bills she sponsored during the 2021, 2023, and 2025 legislative sessions (when Democrats controlled both chambers). Buck has defended her record, noting that the majority party can unilaterally kill bills. 

Her voting record shows she was one of the top lawmakers to break party ranks in 2023, including being one of two Republicans to support protections for an out-of-state abortion seeker bill. 

In 2025, Buck was among the three Senate Republicans who were least likely to vote against their own party, according to a Nevada Independent analysis of legislative voting trends.. 

Congressional District 1, which covers portions of Clark County, has more active registered Democratic voters (30.6 percent) than Republicans (25 percent), with the highest percentage of voters registered as nonpartisans (37.4 percent) as of June 2025.

The district became less Democratic after the 2021 redistricting, when Democratic lawmakers shifted district lines to shore up Democratic voters in the state’s other two Las Vegas-area swing districts. 

Buck’s  Tuesday press release noted that former President Joe Biden won the district by 8.5 percent in 2020, and then dropped to a 2.3 percent margin of victory for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, making it a “top Republican pick-up opportunity in 2026.”

Titus first entered Congress in 2009 but only lasted one term representing the state’s 3rd Congressional District, losing her first re-election bid by less than 1 percentage point to Republican Joe Heck. Two years later, she ran for and won her current congressional seat, which she has held ever since.

Titus won re-election in 2024, defeating her Republican challenger by more than 7.5 percentage points. 

John Ensign, who served in office from 1995 to 1999, has been the only Republican to represent the district since 1982 when the state added a second congressional district.