A newly-released poll indicates that the Trump-appointed former Ambassador to Iceland Jeff Gunter is the early frontrunner to win the Republican nomination for Nevada’s 3rd U.S. Congressional district. Gunter, a medical doctor who ran for U.S. Senate in 2024, is rumored to be considering a Congressional bid in the midterms and has already amassed a lead in his district over his potential competition already on the campaign trail.
Gunter is holding an overwhelming lead of nearly 34 points over his closest competition, anti-Trump establishment candidate Marty O’Donnell. The RMC poll showed 44.4 percent of respondents supporting Gunter with O’Donnell in a distant second place with 10.6 percent. 39.4 percent of voters remain undecided but that will likely be changing as O’Donnell’s vicious anti-Trump comments come to light.
“If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s Donald Trump,” O’Donnell wrote in an X post. In another post, O’Donnell wrote: “Donald Trump is an idiot. Period.”
“Remember the horse in Animal Farm? The horses are voting for Trump,” O’Donnell wrote, alluding to President Trump’s supporters as being suckers.
In another post, O’Donnell made it clear that he is a staunch establishment Republican, outlining his anti-America First political leanings. He wrote, “For the record: Love William F. Buckley and Milton Friedman. Love Ronald Reagan. Love Condi Rice and Thomas Sowell. Loath Trump and absolutely abhor the Clintons. Tolerate Ron and Rand Paul. Almost impossible to vote in any recent elections.”
Now touting his professional experience as a “veteran video game music composer,” O’Donnell bills himself as a fighter against “special interests and big corporations” who are “rigging the system against working people and making it too difficult for families to make ends meet.” Conspicuously absent from O’Donnell’s campaign website are references to President Trump, with only one brief mention of Trump buried in a blurb about the candidate’s vague support for border security. It does not appear as if O’Donnell’s political leanings have changed much in the years since he made his vehemently anti-Trump posts.
In contrast, Gunter has made it abundantly clear that the primary goal of his candidacy is to defend President Trump’s America First agenda. Gunter has boldly declared himself as “110% Pro-Trump,” and voters will not have to worry about him suddenly becoming a voice of the anti-Trump resistance following the election like they would with O’Donnell.
The Nevada 3rd Congressional District Republican primary vote is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, June 9, 2026.
