Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), the only Republican in Nevada’s congressional delegation, announced on Friday that he will retire at the end of his current term after more than a decade in Congress. 

“Serving the people of Nevada has been the honor of my lifetime,” the congressman wrote in a statement. “Nobody is prouder of our Nevada Congressional District than me. Thank you for the honor. Every achievement worth doing began with listening to Nevadans and fighting for our values.” 

Amodei, 67, has represented the state’s 2nd Congressional District since 2011, after previously serving in the state Legislature. He took on a more public-facing role after becoming chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s Homeland Security Subcommittee in 2024. The key position is responsible for funding the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other agencies. Last week, he told The Nevada Independent that President Donald Trump’s administration needs to “pivot” in its approach to immigration enforcement. 

His decision to retire appears sudden; the congressman told the Nevada Appeal in August that he intended to run for re-election. At the end of last year, he told NOTUS, “It’s Dec. 16. Yes, I plan on running … Ask me in 60 days.”

Amodei is one of dozens of Republicans to announce he is imminently leaving Congress as Democrats appear positioned for a strong performance in the midterms. 

“Democrats should be in a strong position to take back the House,” Erin Covey, The Cook Political Report’s U.S. House editor, told The Nevada Independent in an interview.

Amodei’s district, which includes Reno, Carson City and Elko, is the only one in Nevada not considered a battleground. According to Cook, it is solidly Republican. Of its registered voters, 196,000 are Republicans, compared with 122,000 Democrats and 156,000 nonpartisans. 

“Even in a good year for Democrats, it would take a really weak Republican candidate and a really strong Democratic candidate, I think, to potentially put it in play,” Covey said.

Amodei has won the seat by at least 15 points in every general election; he also easily dispatched two GOP primary challengers in recent years: former Assm. Sharron Angle in 2018 and Douglas County Commissioner Danny Tarkanian in 2022. 

The announcement, which shocked the Nevada political world Friday, has already launched speculation about potential candidates for the seat. 

Among the names mentioned are Tarkanian, 2024 Senate nominee Sam Brown (R), former Assm. Ken Gray (R-Dayton) and attorney Joey Gilbert, who lost a gubernatorial primary bid to Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) in 2022. So far, none of them have indicated whether they will run for the now-open seat.

According to a source familiar, Air Force veteran Tony Grady (R), who lost in the 2024 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, is “very interested” in the seat and will consider a bid over the weekend. 

In a statement on social media Friday, unsuccessful gubernatorial and Senate nominee and former Attorney General Adam Laxalt (R) wrote, “While I appreciate the encouragement I have received to run for Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District, I remain focused on raising my and Jaime’s four young children. I also remain focused on my firm Cooper & Kirk and all the great work we are doing every day.”

The congressman had already attracted a wide but relatively unknown field of Democratic opponents for 2026. The most prominent of them is venture capitalist Greg Kidd, who lost to Amodei in 2024 while running as an independent. Ahead of the midterms, Kidd — now running as a Democrat — had already loaned his campaign $350,000. 

“It just doubles the energy,” Kidd said in an interview with The Nevada Independent after Amodei’s announcement. “We all know what the stats are for trying to win a seat from an incumbent. Now this is an open seat, and this moves it right into the national spotlight.” 

Amodei, a Carson City native, is an Army veteran who worked as a lawyer before entering politics. He served in the Nevada Assembly before becoming a state senator in 1999 and serving as president pro tempore in the Senate for half a decade. 

The congressman won a special election in 2011 to represent the district after its previous representative, Dean Heller, was appointed to the U.S. Senate. Amodei also served as president of the Nevada Mining Association in 2007 and 2008.

The congressman is generally considered a pragmatic conservative. He pushed for immigration reform in Congress and supported Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Though he voted against the Inflation Reduction Act pushed by then-President Joe Biden, he later pushed to keep its energy tax credits in place. In 2017, he faced backlash for supporting the Republican effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, a decision he said he made right before the vote. 

Lands issues have been a major focus for the congressman throughout his tenure and he has promised to make passing a Nevada lands bill a top priority this Congress. Last year, he angered the Democratic members of the delegation with a last-minute bid to sell off public lands to fund the federal government. In September, he said he was open to the Trump administration taking an equity stake in Thacker Pass, a lithium mine in his district. 

But Amodei hasn’t hesitated to break with Trump, either. In 2019, he backed an impeachment inquiry into the president before ultimately voting against impeachment that year and again in 2021. This fall, he criticized the administration’s “communication culture”.

In 2025, he helped ensure the Capitol Christmas tree was harvested in his district. 

Tabitha Mueller contributed to this report.

This story was updated on 02/06/26 at 1:17 p.m. to add information about Amodei's career.