By Jim Ellis — Monday, February 9, 2026
NV-2
Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Carson City)
Rep. Amodei is the 51st House member not to seek re-election in this cycle. Another five open seats are created through new redistricting maps in California and Texas. The number includes the three districts, in California, Georgia, and New Jersey, that are vacant and currently in special election cycles.
Amodei was first elected to federal office in a 2011 special election after then-Rep. Dean Heller (R) was appointed to the Senate. Rep. Amodei has been re-elected seven times and averaged 58.7 percent of the vote in those elections. Prior to winning the US House seat, he served 14 years in the Nevada legislature. Amodei was then elected as Nevada Republican Party chairman but kept the position for only one year because the congressional seat came open.
Nevada’s 2nd District, which covers the domain’s northern sector and is anchored in the cities of Reno and Carson City, is the state’s only Republican congressional seat. The Dave’s Redistricting App statisticians calculate a 53.8R – 40.5D partisan lean, meaning that Rep. Amodei consistently ran ahead of the party benchmark. In 2024, President Trump carried the seat with a 55.8 – 41.9 percent spread, a margin that was largely responsible for catapulting him to a close statewide win.
Now that CD-2 is open, it remains to be seen if perennial GOP candidate Danny Tarkanian enters this race. Since 2004, Tarkanian, the son of the late famed college basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, has run for 10 different offices in Nevada including twice for US Senate and Congressional Districts 2, 3 and 4.
Danny Tarkanian is currently a Douglas County Commissioner, which is in the 2nd CD. He has won a fair number of Republican primaries but typically fails to win the general election. In 2022, he challenged Rep. Amodei in the 2nd District Republican primary and lost 55-33 percent in a campaign where he had little chance of prevailing from the outset.
Currently, Tarkanian is an announced candidate in the open Attorney General’s race. He still has time to pivot into the congressional race, however. The candidate filing period doesn’t close until March 13.
A crowded 2nd District Republican candidate field is expected to form. The eventual Republican nominee should be a clear favorite in the general election. Should Tarkanian enter the race and win the primary, Democrats will invest here because of his previous electoral track record. Therefore, a spending advantage and a weaker Republican nominee is enough political fodder for Democrats to believe an upset is possible.
NJ-11
An estimated 5,000-plus votes still remain to be counted in the New Jersey special congressional election to replace Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) in the US House.
In the first round of political overtime counting, Democratic Socialist and former Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) staff member Analila Mejia expanded her advantage over former 7th District Rep. Tom Malinowski to 868 votes according to NBC News.
Even bleaker for Malinowski’s chances, almost an equal number of votes remain from the two counties, Essex and Passaic, where Mejia topped Malinowski as compared to Morris County, an entity the former Congressman carried.
Counting will resume today and presumably be completed today or tomorrow. With Mejia as the nominee staking out the far left from a district’s electorate that has habitually trended toward the political center, it will be interesting to see if the Republicans fully back their nominee for the April 16 special general election. Randolph Township Mayor Joe Hathaway won the Republican primary on Thursday in unopposed fashion.
Candidate filing for the regular election closes on March 23 for the June 2 primary. The timing complicates matters since the candidates must file for the regular term before the special election concludes.