Carrie Buck is the GOP's dream congressional candidate. Can she make Democrats like her?

Carrie Buck is a people person.

On a Thursday in early September, the GOP nominee in Las Vegas' 1st Congressional District is at an event for the Henderson Chamber of Commerce. People know her as a teacher and principal, a charter school advocate and, now, a state senator. 

In her hot pink lace dress, matching heels, black blazer and Nevada-shaped pin, she doles out hugs and waves to the other guests, some of whom are prominent Republicans and a few who are Switzerland, politically. 

Then it's into the Chrysler minivan, a stop at home — her neighborhood isn't gated, though she does live in the prettiest, palm-framed house on the block — where her Maltese-Shih Tzu mix Coco trails her just as closely as her human fans, out to ferry her teens to math tutoring, then back across town to a Leadership Institute of Nevada completion ceremony for educators. 

"Dr. Buck!" someone exclaims affectionately. She's invited into the receiving line. 

Every year, Buck tells The Nevada Independent, she rereads Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, which her dad gave her when she was young. It's an early self-help book, full of earnest advice about being interested in and appreciative of others. 

"Sometimes people are like, 'Carrie!' and I don't know who they are, but I make everybody feel like I know them," she says. 

Most days on the campaign trail aren't like this, though Carnegie's advice is still applicable. Most days, she wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to call donors. It's paid off — this cycle, she is the only Republican challenger in the country to outraise a Democratic incumbent three quarters in a row.

"One of my fundraisers says that 'Carrie's the only candidate that's actually done like whoa, so many calls,'" she said. "My cellphone number was reported for spam." 

It's a skill Buck has honed for decades, from her days going door-to-door selling sweet corn in Iowa (a dollar a dozen) to becoming a telemarketer in college to raising $3 million for disadvantaged students.

Will it be enough to send her to Congress? On paper, it's unlikely. Buck is challenging Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV), a longtime representative who has won re-election in much tougher years than this. They are squaring off in a battleground district rated "Likely Democrat" by The Cook Political Report, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans. 

With President Donald Trump's approval rating at historic lows and the GOP's performance on the generic ballot in the gutter, her party is staring down the prospect of a blue wave that could put even traditionally red seats in play. And Democrats argue that Buck, who has the president's endorsement, is more extreme than she lets on.

But the D.C. Republicans who recruited Buck sing her praises and keep pouring money into the race. 

They certainly think she has a chance to buck the odds. 

"God had different plans" 

Buck grew up in a conservative family in Sioux City, Iowa. Her grandpa had an eighth-grade education. Her dad was an accountant and her mom worked for the telephone company. 

"When my parents brought me home from the hospital, it was to my grandparents' small farm in a trailer on the corner of their property," she said. "My grandpa had cattle and pigs, and so we had a lot of pork chops."

According to her personal financial disclosure, she is now a multimillionaire. But she traveled a long road to get there, especially starting out as a teacher.

Nothing lights Buck up more than talking about education. She loved playing school with her little sister — she was always the teacher. 

In 1995, she earned her Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Montana State University. But Bozeman had one teaching job that drew 1,500 applicants, so in 1996, she packed up for Las Vegas, where jobs were plentiful and relatives could help watch her 4-year-old. 

She started out in elementary schools, teaching English as a second language and making $800 every two weeks. Three years later, she earned her master's in administration and supervision from the University of Phoenix. In 2006, she went on to earn her doctorate from Nova Southeastern University. She says she paid all $127,000 of her student loans back on her own.

She did not plan to go to C.T. Sewell Elementary, a Title I school, meaning it got extra federal funding because of its high percentage of poor students. 

"I had applied to be a principal at two other previous schools, and I didn't get the job," Buck said. "They were, you know, in a better demographic. Probably would have been a little easier. And God had different plans for me. He wanted me at this school that was the lowest-performing school in the state."

When she got there in 2006, she made a business plan to turn the school around, moving teachers to the roles she thought best-suited their strengths and the mission. 

Buck's philosophy on education is a mix of warmth and accountability. She speaks about the efficacy of wraparound services, but also about how inflating grades does students a disservice. She says sometimes it's right to hold students back and give them the "gift" of an extra year, as she did with three of her four sons. When she was a teacher, she would regularly check in with the kids to ask if they were "doing their jobs." 

"If a child was out more than two days, oh, I was there at their home, knocking on the door," she said. "Parents didn't see me as a threat; they saw me as I really want their child successful."

Math and reading proficiency levels jumped by about 50 percentage points at C.T. Sewell. In 2008, Buck won a Milken Award, deemed "The Oscars of Teaching." Then-Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) hugged her as she teared up. 

Buck keeps a scrapbook of newspaper clippings from that time, back when the media wrote only good things about her. It includes an article about that day, noting how Buck credited the whole team for the school's success. In the decade since she left, its rating has fallen. 

She loved the work and it loved her back. 

"I'll probably haunt the halls of Sewell one day," she said. "It was the highlight of my life to do that job." 

"People didn't take her seriously" 

Buck had always been conservative, though her politics began to crystalize while working at Sewell. She saw the way students' home lives affected their success and the ways outside help could change the course of their lives — or be wasted.

"I would see some abuses of the system," she said. "Parents would be getting a bike. We'd get a bike donated for their child, and the parents would sell it. Or kids were coming to school hungry, but I knew mom was on assistance." 

Her first thought about running came, she said, after the school district told her she had to spend money from the Legislature on textbooks, not the math education technology she wanted to buy. In 2016, after checking in with Republican leadership, she decided to go for it. Buck challenged the late state Sen. Joyce Woodhouse (D-Henderson), who had also moved from Montana to become a teacher and principal.

Pilita Simpson, who runs the nonprofit Positively Arts, regularly brings Buck in to speak to kids she works with. She likes that the state senator is a "goofball" who is honest about her setbacks. 

"One master class, all she did was talk about, 'These were my failures … and I looked at all of them as opportunities to pivot and learn,'" Simpson recounted.

That first race marked one of those failures. She lost by fewer than 500 votes in the closest state Senate election of the cycle.

A year later, Republicans put Buck's name forward in a rare and unsuccessful effort to recall Woodhouse. Buck later apologized to the Democrat while seeking a job as state superintendent, texting her, "I don't want to run for state senate ever again … I'm sorry Joyce." 

Asked about that comment in a follow-up email from The Nevada Independent, Buck wrote, "Over time, my circumstances changed. I had stability in my work and support from my family, and I became increasingly concerned about the direction of Nevada's political leadership at the time. That's ultimately why I decided to run again." 

She did so when Woodhouse was termed out in 2020. 

"She's really smart," said former Sen. Keith Pickard (R-Henderson). "She has kind of a folksy approach, and I think that people like that generally. But you know, people didn't take her seriously. But I was impressed with her. … I tell people all the time, the best thing I did for the Nevada Senate was recruit Carrie Buck."

The day Joe Biden secured the presidency, Buck won her seat by 329 votes out of more than 67,000 cast.

An unusual "badge of courage"

Buck has an unguarded conversational style that makes her seem completely sincere when she says things that are hard to believe coming from a politician. That is the case when she recalls being given a different self-help book — the Machiavellian The 48 Laws of Power, which includes rules such as "Know Who You're Dealing With — Do Not Offend the Wrong Person."

"I'm not a power person," Buck said. "I'd rather be behind the scenes."

In the state Senate, she's had no choice. Her bills were doomed from the start. Buck has the unique distinction of being the only state senator who has failed to pass any bills she sponsored this decade. 

Part of the problem was that Democrats didn't want to give her wins to tout in her battleground seat. But according to multiple members of both parties who spoke to The Nevada Independent, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro's (D-Las Vegas) personal dislike of Buck, stemming from the recall effort, also kept her from gaining any traction — even as other Republicans in swingy districts passed bills. 

State Senate Minority Leader Robin Titus (R-Wellington) told The Nevada Independent that she advocated for Buck directly with the majority leader in their weekly meetings. 

"I told her to take it as a badge of courage because, frankly, in my mind, the Democrats didn't want her to get a single bill passed," Titus said. "I literally demanded that Nicole at least meet with Carrie, hear Carrie's bills, or at least give her the courtesy as a elected senator to have that conversation as adults. And I was actually in that room, and there was no hesitation that Nicole had a strong dislike of Carrie. And probably still does, actually."

In a statement to The Indy, Cannizzaro spokesperson Peter Koltak said the majority leader wasn't alone.

"As Senator Titus has confided in the Majority Leader many times, senators of both parties find Carrie Buck to be unlikeable and difficult to work with," he wrote. "Despite that, Leader Cannizzaro has met with Buck multiple times in an attempt to coach her on how to successfully move her bills. She's taken none of that advice, so she has nobody to blame but herself for her own glaring lack of accomplishments."

Many of Buck's bills were not controversial. One, from 2023, aimed to make it easier for inmates to get photo IDs when they were released from prison. Last session, she introduced a bill that would have required first responders to be trained to recognize human trafficking. Neither made it out of committee.

Those who interacted with Buck tend to describe her as pleasant in-person. Yet she has drawn ire, occasionally within her party, and often outside of it. 

Launching her Carson City career during the pandemic, with little opportunity for in-person bonding, didn't help. Buck got into an early dust-up with state Sen. Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas) when she did not get prior approval for a speaker at a 2021 committee hearing. At the time, the hearings were held on Zoom, and speaker permission was carefully monitored. Pickard said Scheible "read her the Riot Act."

"I don't want to say it shook Carrie, but she was bothered by it," Pickard said. "Like any other human, she wants people to like her, and she wants to get along with people."

Buck and Scheible made up, but Carson City sources said Buck has not endeared herself to Democrats in the proactive way she needed to as a member of the minority, especially after the 2017 recall. Many suggested she did not do a good job advocating for even her noncontroversial bills across the aisle.

Meanwhile, Buck said Democrats took some of her ideas and ran with them. She said Cannizzaro and other Democrats' legislation on fertility fraud, which became law, followed her own.

"I had the trial attorneys coming in and saying, "Oh, we really like this bill on fertility fraud, and I'm like, 'Great, I'm gonna finally get a bill through!'" she recalled. "Two weeks later they said, 'Oh, the majority leader likes that bill also,' so she just basically rewrote it and used it.'"

Another bill Buck led in 2023 sought an increase to Medicaid reimbursement rates for the treatment of pediatric diseases. That bill didn't pass, but she signed on to a similar Democrat-led piece of legislation.

"When it became clear that some of my legislation was not going to move under my name, I focused on finding other ways to advance the policy," Buck wrote to The Nevada Independent. "That mattered more to me than whose name appeared at the top of the legislation."

"I want to be the grace of God" 

Three years ago, Buck was among the Republican senators most likely to vote against her party — backing an abortion shield law and a bill supporting gender-affirming care in state prisons. 

By 2025, she had become one of the three GOP senators least likely to break with her party. 

She is also extremely online. Buck has made more than 16,000 posts on X, where Democrats have found plenty of ammo. In a since-deleted social media post, she compared abortions to Nazism. She has referred to Democrats as "evil" multiple times. She agreed with Trump that Nancy Pelosi may have orchestrated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and has voiced conspiratorial doubts about election security. 

As Elon Musk conceptualized DOGE, she was in his replies supporting him in what she called "a spiritual battle." 

She suggested legalizing concealed weapons for school officials. Last year, Buck served on a task force aimed at keeping transgender athletes out of women's sports. This year, she was among the Republicans who left an Interim Finance Committee meeting early to attend a Trump rally.

A Nevada political operative who spoke to The Indy said Buck embraced inflammatory, nationalized rhetoric online and that she struggled to build the trusting, Nevada-centric relationships lawmakers need to get things done. A lobbyist said it was hard to predict where she would fall on different bills. 

Still, Democrats and Republicans alike offered praise for her work on education, which everyone agreed was where she was most knowledgeable — and passionate.

Retired principal Tam Larnard said she would regularly check in with him before legislative sessions and "would just kind of say, 'Hey, what are the things you think need to get done?'"

Back in 2014, around the time she first considered running for office, Buck was recruited to the charter school Pinecrest Academy, where she was principal and executive director. In 2019, she became president of the Pinecrest Foundation, which raises money for scholarships, a job she still holds. 

Asked via email why she made the switch from Sewell, she wrote that she was ready to take on a new challenge that offered more freedom. 

"I learned that charter schools can give educators greater flexibility to respond to students' needs while also giving parents more choices for their children," she said.

Buck advocated for increased funding for Opportunity Scholarships, need-based aid to help kids attend private and religious schools which Democrats have largely opposed due to concerns about siphoning resources away from the public school system. She supported facility funding and raises for charter school teachers after a 2023 bill left them out. She voted against a bill that would impose limits on education management organizations such as Academica Nevada, which manages Pinecrest and other schools.

"Carrie's been working behind the scenes to soften the resistance and to get things done," Pickard said. 

Buck is buoyant. She drinks Starbucks with a pumpkin drawn on the cup and displays a "Laugh" sign on her bookshelf. She twists the silver cross she wears around her neck between her fingers while she talks — she is a non-denominational Protestant who attends church every Sunday. The worst thing she says about her career challenges? Her greatest joy is helping people, and when she can't, "it's so frustrating." 

She does not sound at all like a typical MAGA politician, especially when she recalls the dream she had when she first launched her career. 

"Someday I wouldn't mind creating a utopia," she recalls thinking. "Somewhere where people can't wait to get out of bed to come to school and teach children, and they're valued and everybody's respected, and I can breathe love into each and every one." 

It's easy to imagine her talking to kids.

Even if Republicans retain the House majority — the prediction-defying result that a Buck victory may require — she said she would work across the aisle. 

"If I'm ever in power of anything, I want to be the grace of God," she said.

Congresswoman Buck?

Buck's legislative resume is very different from that of other Nevada representatives who were legislative leaders before entering national politics. 

"It wasn't really on my plan to, you know, go to D.C." she said, saying national operatives had first approached her about the possibility. "However … it's very enticing being in the majority, and being able to deliver something tangible for Nevadans."

She is, of course, planning to address education. 

Last year, the GOP megabill created a tax credit for scholarship donations aimed at boosting school choice. She'd like to see states implement a grant system so parents have more options. She's also excited about policies such as the child tax credit. 

"I love tax breaks," she said. "The more tax breaks that we can give to Nevadans through no tax on tips, I'd love to make that permanent. No tax on overtime and social security."

Energy costs would be a priority, too.

"Our fuel prices are going up, and some of this may be because of the [Iran] war, but it's been going up anyway, because California has, basically, an attack on fossil fuels." "Maybe we have some federal land that goes up for sale, so that way we can build a bigger pipeline from Utah." After that, she thinks "nuclear is the next solution." 

She is less specific about other plans. What bills would be first on her list?

"I haven't really thought that next step because getting elected is, of course, my first focus, but anything with, you know, land, affordable housing," she said. 

Asked why she voted against legislation that would have limited corporate ownership of homes, she said it "needed more work." 

On the 21st Century Road to Housing Act — a new federal law limiting corporations to 350 single-family units — she added, "Obviously, I think that we can't have corporations buying up all these homes."

Recently, she had a two-and-a-half-hour dinner with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). 

"I can't wait to win because it'll be historic," she said. "It'll be historic, and then I'll just have to go to work and get something done, and I'll look at Speaker Johnson and leadership to like, what is the most digestible [thing] that I can do?"

At times, she speaks with some doubt about Republican orthodoxy.

"This whole waste, fraud and abuse — how much of that is true?" she asks. "Because if all the things that you're seeing are true, it's alarming."

It's similar on immigration. Many of her students when she first came to Las Vegas, who spoke Swahili and Spanish, were the children of immigrants. In The Nevada Independent's recent congressional policy survey, Buck was the only Republican to say that she mostly disagrees with the statement that all undocumented immigrants should be deported. 

"First and foremost, we need to know who's in our country," she said. "But I think most Americans want a pathway for people that want to come here. They want to work. … Our Hispanic community really is the backbone of our Nevada service industry, and so there has to be an easier pathway."

Buck then turns to criticizing Democrats for not accomplishing immigration reform. She adds that it's important to make sure Americans can get jobs, too, and that she sees why the president has pursued the approach he has. 

If elected, she knows when she'd be ready to quit — at 67. 

"I believe in term limits," Buck said. "I'll do 12 years. Then put me on a cruise ship."

"Not thinking of the welfare of people like Carrie"

As she drops her sons off, she mentions how she tells them not to talk politics at school. She doesn't want them to be a target. 

Still, it's not like the whole family are dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. Her sister is a Democrat who plans to vote for her. Her husband, a retired Henderson deputy police chief, is less conservative than she is. 

"I'm trying not to raise them so partisan," she says, laughing a little. "My husband is always really good for that. … He's a Republican on paper, but he's a very independent thinker." 

Proving that she is the same will likely be key to winning. At one point, she dials a friend to see if he'll speak to The Nevada Independent about her campaign.

"This guy hates Trump," she says.

He never calls The Indy, but other supporters do. Joseph Diorio, who owns a car-detailing business and met her through GOP political events, was a Republican before becoming an independent this year "because there is just too much kissing up to Israel." He's displeased with rising gas prices as war in the Middle East has ramped up.

"Trump, in my opinion, is not thinking of the welfare of people like Carrie and others," Diorio, 22,  said.

It will be on Buck to overcome the national environment.

"If we're going to get this seat," said Robin Titus, "If anybody can do it, it will be Carrie." 

Emilia Ruzicka, Seraphina Feron and MuckRock's Sunlight Research Desk provided research for this story.