We finally have David Flippo's financial disclosure. Here's what we found.

David Flippo has invested millions in running for Congress. But the Republican small-business owner and retired lieutenant colonel has failed to follow a federal law requiring candidates to share the details of their personal finances.

Until now. His personal financial disclosure, shared first with The Nevada Independent and coming five weeks before Election Day and almost four months after Flippo prevailed in the June primary, gives the public more information about where he got the money. 

Flippo, who is favored to become the state's newest member of Congress in ruby red Northern Nevada, reports a net worth between $3.2 million and $14.5 million. His largest holdings are "America First Home Mortgage" and "AZ Land Reserve PPM" in Meadview, Arizona, a rural community near Lake Mead and the Grand Canyon's West Rim. They are worth between $1 million and $5 million each. 

The campaign did not provide further details about these holdings, though a search for "AZ Land Reserve" turns up a website advertising luxury ranches under construction in Meadview. The site promises the development will include a runway for residents who fly private and advertises information for investors. The "PPM" on Flippo's disclosure could refer to a Private Placement Memorandum, a document provided to investors for privately funded ventures.

Flippo also holds much of his wealth in mutual funds, ETFs, stocks and bonds, including in retirement accounts from his previous employer. He has between $1 million and $2 million in life insurance.

He reported earning more than $200,000 this year from his work as an independent broker and investment adviser through Strategic Foundations LLC with LPL and Prudential, military retirement and combat disability and his hobby store in Utah. That store is worth between $500,000 and $1 million, according to the filing.

Flippo also reported between $580,000 and $1.2 million in debt. The bulk of that comes from an equity line of credit he obtained in April 2024 while he was running in the 4th Congressional District. At that point, he had already given his campaign more than half a million dollars. He lost the primary by 3 points. There is no record of him filing a financial disclosure that year.

"David Flippo is committed to being fully transparent with Nevadans and the American people," Flippo campaign general consultant Rory McShane wrote in an email to The Nevada Independent, "which is why we have made these draft disclosures available to the press." 

Per McShane, Flippo ran into technical difficulties trying to file his new disclosure online over the weekend, so he completed the disclosure by hand and planned to submit it via mail and fax.

Flippo was late to file the personal financial disclosure that details the source of his wealth and how he could afford to loan his campaign $1.6 million. He also did not file a disclosure form during his 2024 run for Congress, even though he put $785,000 into that campaign.

The Republican's delay in submitting the document this year drew attention in national and local media as he faces a closer fight than expected in the traditionally Republican district against former Assm. Teresa Benitez-Thompson (D-Reno).

Federal ethics law mandates all candidates who raise or spend $5,000 file the forms within 30 days of becoming a candidate or by May 15, whichever is later, and other Nevada nominees submitted theirs weeks ago. 

"It means that voters can't see real or even perceived conflicts of interest," said Faith Williams, a senior project manager at Common Cause, a nonprofit focused on increasing transparency and accountability in American government. "People deserve to know the financial interests of those running to represent them."

Enforcement is weak. Candidates are able to request extensions for up to 90 days, but filing late without an extension only comes with a $200 fine assessed by the House Ethics Committee. 

There's no record of Flippo requesting an extension, and the committee declined to comment on if he had done so. In early September, his campaign claimed that it had filed for an extension, though a story published last week stated it had not done so and would pay the fine.

The Campaign Legal Center, a campaign finance watchdog, this month filed ethics complaints alleging 77 congressional candidates, including Flippo, had not yet disclosed their finances.

"Enforcement is kind of a joke," Williams said. "I don't think this is top of mind for the House Committee on Ethics this Congress or in the past either."

Now, a close examination of the filing and a deep dive into public records, with help from MuckRock's Sunlight Research Desk, sheds light on Flippo's financial history, including multimillion-dollar investments and an old mining claim in Alaska. 

What else do we know about Flippo's finances? 

Flippo has previously filed one financial disclosure — back when he was running for state Assembly in 2022. Though that form included few hard numbers, it did list income from the two businesses included on his new filing. 

It also mentioned the money stemming from his military service. Flippo served in the Air Force between January 1984 and July 2009. A 25-year military career generally comes with retired pay amounting to 62.5 percent of the highest years of base pay, plus a cost of living adjustment. For a lieutenant colonel, that would work out to about $87,000 before taxes. On his disclosure form, Flippo reported receiving $72,000 in annual retirement pay. 

He also reported receiving $48,000 per year in combat disability, a sum that typically requires a 100 percent disability rating, per charts from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

McShane declined to answer questions about Flippo's disability rating, writing that they were "about private matters between David and his doctors at the VA." 

Flippo's new disclosure also lists a payment of $82,000 from First Command for "deferred compensation" in 2025. He previously worked for First Command Financial, a Texas-based financial services firm focused on serving service members and veterans. He was fired in late 2024 for violating "numerous company policies and regulatory regulations related to electronic communications, books and records, and customer identification," per a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) report, which also states that "no client harm was involved." 

"In the finance industry, when you're terminated, it gets filed," Flippo told The Nevada Independent in a May interview. "They did an investigation, not just the company, but FINRA, a federal investigation, they looked at all my transactions and everything. They found nothing to discipline me for. They found no — I wasn't fined for anything. I didn't lose any licenses. I currently work for the largest independent brokerage firm in the nation." 

Public records show that Flippo found a new role with LPL in March 2025 and has since been registered as an agent in Alabama, California, Nevada and Virginia.

Flippo's other company is the St. George, Utah-based Flip's Family Fun Inc., operating as a HobbyTown, a store that sells radio-controlled vehicles, model parts, toys and other hobby-related paraphernalia. 

The company was incorporated in 2017, and Flippo, his wife, and two sons were listed as officers. Flip's Family Fun's registration has been inactive since late 2021, although the HobbyTown store appears to have been open until recently, with Yelp reviews praising the business and mentioning Ryan, Flippo's son who runs the store. 

The conservative outlet Nevada News & Views reported late last week that HobbyTown's final day of operation was June 30. Flippo's new disclosure still lists him as the CEO of the store and reports $70,000 in income last year and $56,000 this year. One line on the form indicates the shop earned more than $100,000 in 2026. 

Nevada News & Views also states that the business received an $18,000 Paycheck Protection Loan in 2020 followed by a $69,000 COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan later that year. McShane did not confirm or deny that reporting. 

According to public records viewed by The Nevada Independent, the U.S. Small Business Administration placed a lien on the business in 2020, which it typically does to secure a loan. The lien lapsed automatically after five years. 

Flippo's 2022 financial disclosure listed three lines of credit: one from First Command Bank — ostensibly the five-figure personal loan he now details incurring in 2017 — and two credit cards that are absent from his latest report. 

The old document also stated that he and his wife owned mutual funds and a recreational vehicle lot in St. George. 

The lot, purchased in 2021, is valued between $50,001 and $100,000, according to the new filing. A Zillow listing indicates the property went up for sale at a price of $80,000 in mid-June, with a price cut to $78,000 on Aug. 20. It was listed as "pending sale" on Sept. 18.

The recent filing also provides new details about his holdings, which feature a focus on tech and natural resources, including semiconductors. He also has between $2,002 and $30,000 invested in the President Donald Trump-owned company behind TruthSocial.

Property records 

Property records shed further light on Flippo's full financial picture over the years — including a series of homes across the United States and a short-lived mining operation. 

While he rents near Reno and searches for a permanent Northern Nevada home, Flippo and his wife still own a house in Las Vegas. A deed shows the couple took out a 30-year mortgage to buy their Lone Mountain home in 2020 for $565,000. At that time, they took out $68,000 of debt, which they repaid after selling their last home, along with a $424,000 mortgage, per Mother Jones. The outlet stated that "sequence suggests that Flippo may have needed the assistance of a bridge loan for his 2020 home purchase."

His disclosure lists two loans totaling between $65,002 and $150,000 taken out in April 2025 for "home improvement." Financing statements confirm these debts, according to Mother Jones. 

Previously, Flippo and his wife owned several other properties. Records show they purchased a house in Bellbrook, Ohio, in 2003 and sold it in 2006. The Washington Post recently noted that The Dayton Daily News reported on his military accomplishments in 2004, when he taught at the the Air Force Institute of Technology's School of Systems and Logistics at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton.

Afterwards, Flippo owned properties in Fairbanks, Anchorage and Kenai, Alaska — where he, his wife and other relatives briefly incorporated a company called Eagle Lake Property LLC. They purchased their first Las Vegas home in 2014. 

Online price histories suggest the Flippos' properties were often valued above the median homes where they lived, though within the low-to-mid-six figures. The same histories suggest they grew their wealth in the same way as many people their age, benefitting from rising home values over the last decade.

But Flippo didn't just own houses. In 2014, he obtained mining rights on 16 parcels of land north of Fairbanks, Alaska. Records show that for the next three years, he hired laborers to work the site, paying them $20 an hour to develop the land through surveying, prospecting and suction dredging. 

Gideon Devilbiss, one of the laborers listed on a labor affidavit as having worked there, told The Nevada Independent he recalled a few days suction dredging in Alaska at the invitation of a friend named Robert Alcorta, whose name was also listed. Devilbiss said he did not meet Flippo and the work didn't really go anywhere. By 2016, the site was deemed abandoned. 

During a previous congressional bid, Flippo told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he understood mining rights because he once owned 2,500 acres of gold mines in Alaska. 

Other sources of income

It's still unclear exactly how Flippo accrued the capital to give his campaign a seven-figure loan — funneling more than $2.4 million in total into Congress bids over the last two cycles.

He does not seem to have been born into unique wealth. He has previously said that he and his wife grew up in rural Virginia. At a campaign event in the spring, he told a small crowd that his ancestors were artisans who worked on Monticello as indentured servants to Thomas Jefferson before he gave them a land grant near Richmond. 

His father served in the Air Force for a quarter century. His mother took care of the kids — Flippo, two brothers and a sister — before becoming a secretary at Virginia Tech in her 40s. 

After he retired from the Air Force, Flippo worked as a maintenance team lead for BP Alaska in Anchorage between 2009 and 2018. Describing the work to The Nevada Independent in May, he said he "went up there and created the preventive maintenance program."

BP is currently hiring for senior U.S.-based roles at a wide range of salaries, with many in the mid- to high-$100,000s. 

McShane declined to answer a more detailed list of questions from The Nevada Independent, including about Flippo's previous earnings, writing in an email that the questions were "indicative of a liberal media that's clearly favoring one side, asking why David Flippo and his wife no longer use their Costco credit card, but no similar questions about why Benitez-Thompson no longer uses her Southwest Visa credit card. … asking about how much David earned at a job he had over a decade ago at BP, while never asking how much Benitez-Thompson earned at her job a decade ago."

The public will have to wait until next month, when the latest campaign finance reports are due to the Federal Election Commission, to see if Flippo has loaned himself more money. Since the primary, much of the spending on Flippo's behalf appears to have come from outside entities. The political arms of the Club for Growth and the House Freedom Caucus recently reserved about $1 million worth of ads; Flippo's campaign reserved just five-figures worth. 

It remains to be seen whether he recoups his money. If Flippo prevails in November, he's more likely to get his loans repaid. 

After all, candidates who have never held office may need to fund themselves to get off the ground, but donors are typically eager to give to members of Congress. 

Michael Nolan and Seraphina Harris-Feron from MuckRock's Sunlight Research Desk provided research and data analysis for this story.