Ah, the noble independent nonpartisan running for Congress.
No bending before partisan whims or bowing before partisan powerbrokers for them. The independent nonpartisan stands bravely – and alone, if necessary – doing not what is right for a party, but what is right for the public. The nonpartisan politician is not bound by petty partisanship, but strives to rise above it.
So high-minded, no?
Or silly.
Can go either way.
At least voters get a choice (no thanks to NVDems)
Greg Kidd is a a venture capitalist who made a bundle investing in ethereal San Jose-area creations like “enterprise-grade crypto solutions” and other endeavors of as yet mostly indeterminate practical functionality.
Now just another normal salt-of-the-earth Nevadan trying to get by among the mansions, compounds, and tony enclaves of Lake Tahoe’s beautiful shores, Kidd is running as an independent against Mark Amodei, the Republican incumbent in Nevada’s second congressional district.
CD2 was created after the 1980 census as a reliably red district from the start, and more than 40 years later it still is. Amodei is only the fourth person – and the fourth Republican – to hold the seat, having first been elected to finish Dean Heller’s term in 2011 (long story) and getting elected six times since then. The Nevada Democratic Party couldn’t find (or couldn’t be bothered to find) a Democrat to file against Amodei this year.
But Kidd, an erstwhile Republican, did file, as a nonpartisan. Then, presumably via innovative frictionless digital asset transfer infrastructure, he provided $1.5 million to his campaign’s finance account. As of the end of June, more than a million of that had been spent on ads and polling, and of course consultants, who are always happy to find ways for obscenely wealthy self-funding vanity candidates to spend their money.
Who knows how much more Kidd will have spent by the time 3rd quarter spending totals are announced after the end of this month? Oh right, the ad, polling, and consulting firms.
Meanwhile Amodei had only raised a bit more than $800,000 by the end of June.
So does that mean Kidd might actually have a shot at defeating Amodei?
The Cook Political Report with that nice Amy Walter doesn’t think so; it continues to list CD2 as “solidly Republican.”
But some Nevada Democrats are excited, or intrigued, or at least obligatorily respectful of the very rich throwing a little sand in the gears of Amodei’s reelection. So Kidd has received many kind words and endorsements from Northern Nevada Republicans. He even got to stand next to Tim Walz when the Democratic vice-presidential nominee breezed through Reno the other day.
And last month, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen endorsed Kidd.
In what is obviously an entirely unrelated development, Kidd contributed more than $15,000 to Rosen’s Senate reelection effort earlier this year,
It’s easy to make fun of Kidd. Tech-besotted venture capitalist bros who are convinced only they can fix it are a dime – or a stablecoin, as the case may be – a dozen.
But Kidd is doing something Nevada Democrats would/could not – challenging Amodei and giving voters a choice. For that, the voters of CD2 should be thankful. To Kidd. But not to Nevada Democrats.
Kidd is also pro-abortion rights. “I take our freedoms seriously, including a woman’s right to choose,” reads Kidd’s campaign webpage. “That right should be enshrined in state and federal constitutional protections.”
By contrast, perhaps the most noteworthy thing about Amodei anymore is how he becomes more cravenly sophisticated at apologizing for Trump and Trumpism with each passing year.
Kidd offers voters in CD2 someone else to vote for besides whichever area libertarian is on the ballot this year. That, at least, somewhat excuses the combination of conceit and naïveté displayed by a self-funding tech financier running as an independent.
Of course it’s still daft, though.
There’s a reason House independents are exceedingly rare
Let’s pretend, for the sake of argument, that being a nonpartisan candidate with oodles of money to drop on a campaign automatically covers a candidacy in magic unicorn dust, and Kidd could actually beat Amodei.
Independents in the U.S. Senate can be a coveted commodity, because in the 100-member Senate, one vote can matter a lot.
But independents are exceedingly rare in the U.S. House. In fact, although the House has 435 members and the Senate 100, there have been more independents serving in the Senate in this century than there have been in the House.
And with the sole exception of the eight terms served by Bernie Sanders in the 1990s and 2000s, every independent in the U.S. House in nearly the last 40 years has been transitory; somebody gets elected as a partisan, but then gets disillusioned with or drummed out of their party, so they turn independent for a brief period prior to their exit.
There’s probably a pretty simple explanation for so few independents in the House. Whether it’s committee assignments, allowing legislation to advance, or doling out office space, House leaders and committee chairs are going to be naturally and institutionally more inclined to reward members of their own party, and put an independent at the back of the line.
Who would Kidd vote for to be House speaker – Democrat Hakeem Jeffries or Republican Mike Johnson? Asked that question, Kidd’s campaign sent a statement that was noncommittal, saying “he’ll support the leadership candidates who are going to do the most for Nevada.”
But maybe Kidd could earn some institutional credit, and favors, during the vote for speaker, and that would make him important?
Oh please. With 435 members, even in a very closely divided House, the likelihood of Kidd’s vote for speaker being decisive to control of the House would still be nanoscopic.
As a practical matter, a newbie nonpartisan member of the U.S. House would have less clout than even a normie newbie. Running as an independent will have an aesthetic appeal to some CD2 voters. But if they elected Kidd, those voters would almost certainly be represented by the least powerful and most easily ignored person in the entire United States Congress.
Unless…
Maybe a Congressman Kidd could make friends and influence congressional colleagues by helping to assure their campaign accounts got stuffed with real currency made available via profitable cryptocurrency exchanges and/or platforms Kidd’s investments helped to create.
After all, if there’s one thing that transcends congressional partisan bickering these days, it’s crypto fever.
Alas, such nakedly transactional political relationships would not be the breath of fresh air people inclined to vote for a nonpartisan are looking for. Presumably even a neophyte like Kidd knows that.
Meanwhile, back in the reality-based community… A Democrat winning in CD2 is a very tall order. And yet more than once Democrats have mounted a seriously competitive challenge in the district. Nevada Democrats owe it to the voters of the second congressional district to get back to trying that in 2026.
This column was updated to include a statement from Kidd’s campaign declining to say who Kidd would support for House speaker.
