Teresa Benitez-Thompson, now running for U.S. Congress in Nevada's 2nd District, has spent years in Nevada politics carefully crafting an image of herself as a practical public servant from Reno. She worked as a social worker, served in the Assembly, and now works as chief of staff to Attorney General Aaron Ford. On the surface, that sounds ordinary. Her actual record proves otherwise.
She has said she is very proud of her voting record. That record includes repeated votes to expand government power over bathrooms, pronouns, school curriculum, and health care. It includes at least eleven tax increases or extensions. It includes support for government-run health care, union mandates, and wage controls. It includes opposition to parental notification on abortion, support for removing other restrictions, and votes that protected taxpayer funding for programs open to Planned Parenthood. It includes energy policies that closed coal plants and raised renewable mandates, and housing votes that added regulations and costs. She voted for tax breaks that helped data centers grow, took money connected to that industry and the state’s main utility, and later called for a timeout once the growth became unpopular. She has openly supported Kamala Harris.
These are not isolated votes or stray comments. They form a consistent pattern of far-left priorities on culture, taxes, abortion, energy, housing, immigration, and elections. In a state congressional race, that pattern makes her one of the most radical left-wing candidates running anywhere in the country.
Supporting woke-ism, transgender pronouns, and LGBT mandates
In 2021 she supported AB 280, which required publicly available single-stall restrooms to be accessible regardless of gender identity or expression and banned gendered signage on those restrooms. The same year she backed SB 364, which required covered medical and residential care facilities to use a person’s preferred gender identity, name, and pronouns in records, along with related cultural-competency rules. AB 408 in 2017 prohibited health insurers and providers from discriminating on grounds that included gender identity or expression while preserving certain ACA-related protections. SB 237 added certified LGBTQ-owned businesses to state economic-development and contracting programs. AB 261 required public-school instruction on the history and contributions of groups that include people of marginalized sexual orientation or gender identity. SB 267 created a workplace-diversity survey covering board composition, pay equity, hiring committees, family leave, contraception, implicit bias, and microaggressions.
She also supported SJR 8, a proposed constitutional equality amendment covering race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and other categories. That language creates a vehicle for litigation on abortion, transgender policy, sports, and public accommodations. She backed expansions of hate-crime enhancements and civil remedies tied to identity-based claims.
Her public statements match the votes. In December 2021 she thanked the Nevada Gay Men’s Chorus for an “enchanting evening.” In April 2022 she replied to a RuPaul’s Drag Race post with the comment that the person “should have put on some heels.” She has written about being honored to attend a fireside chat with Kamala Harris and has noted that Harris personally invited her years earlier.
These are unconstitutional abuses of state power to set rules for restrooms, medical records, school lessons, business programs, and constitutional text. In a district that includes rural Nevada, small businesses, and parents who expect schools to focus on basics, that record stands out as extreme.
Tax hikes and socialized medicine
The economic side is just as consistent. Over five legislative sessions she voted for at least eleven tax increases or extensions: AB 561, SB 432, and AB 219 in 2011; SB 475, AB 413, AB 46, and AB 496 in 2013; SB 483 in 2015; SB 263 and SB 551 in 2019; and AB 495 in 2021. The list covers business taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, fuel taxes, payroll taxes, mining taxes, vaping taxes, and measures that extended temporary taxes or authorized local increases.
At the same time she supported policies that expand government direction of the economy. She backed AB 374 universal-health-care legislation and SB 420, which created a government public option. She supported SB 135 on state-employee collective bargaining and SB 153 on evergreen union clauses. She voted for SB 312 paid-leave mandates and for minimum-wage measures in AB 456 and AJR 10. SB 284 advanced subsidized housing tax credits. She also supported prevailing-wage rules that set wages above market levels on public projects. These measures replace private bargaining and market prices with government mandates on health care, wages, leave, and housing — positions that are more inline with the priorities of the Marxist DSA than patriotic Nevada voters.
Abortion on Demand and Limitless Baby Murder
Her abortion votes remove common limits and open the door to taxpayer funding. She opposed parental-notification legislation. She supported SB 179, which removed abortion restrictions and statutory safeguards. She backed SB 122 and SB 94, which directed taxpayer money to family-planning programs while protecting Planned Parenthood eligibility. She supported the same SJR 8 constitutional language that covers sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression—language that can be used in litigation to expand abortion access and related claims. The combination is straightforward: opposition to parental notification, fewer restrictions, public funding for programs open to major abortion providers, and a constitutional vehicle for further litigation.
Energy costs and housing regulations
Her energy votes track the same direction. SB 123 accelerated coal-plant closures. AB 206 raised renewable-energy mandates. AB 405 restored solar subsidies. AB 465 shifted solar-program costs. SB 448 authorized Greenlink transmission spending and transportation electrification. AB 383 imposed appliance-efficiency standards. Taken together, these are a Nevada version of Green New Deal priorities: close coal, mandate renewables, subsidize solar, spend on transmission and electrification, and regulate appliances. The predictable result is higher power bills, higher appliance costs, and greater pressure on reliability—especially in rural areas that depend on mining, ranching, and conventional energy.
On housing she supported eviction delays, landlord fee and notice rules, subsidized housing tax credits, apprenticeship restrictions, development reviews, and insurance mandates. Bills such as SB 151, AB 308, AB 486, SB 284, SB 247, AB 211, and SB 103 add layers of regulation and cost. Those costs show up in rents, construction prices, insurance premiums, and home prices. She voted for the measures that produce them.
Supporting illegal immigration and election fraud infrastructure
On immigration she co-sponsored SJR 15 urging comprehensive reform and an earned pathway to citizenship. She jointly sponsored SB 303, which created driver authorization cards for people unable to provide conventional lawful-presence documents; the cards were not federal identification, and the bill limited release of legal-presence information for immigration enforcement. AB 193 extended the validity of those cards. She supported AB 376, the Keep Nevada Working Act, which included a $500,000 appropriation to the UNLV Immigration Clinic, task-force requirements, and limits on immigration enforcement in certain public settings. She backed SB 347, which allowed in-state tuition for Nevada high-school graduates regardless of immigration status. She supported creation of an Office for New Americans.
On elections she supported AB 321 making universal mail ballots permanent, AB 345 authorizing same-day registration, and AB 432 expanding automatic registration. She has opposed the SAVE Act. AB 186 joined the National Popular Vote compact through the existing Electoral College mechanism—allowing an attack from the right that it overrides Nevada’s own vote, and from some on the left that it preserves rather than abolishes the system.
Her illicit political network
Her network reinforces the pattern. She is chief of staff to Attorney General Aaron Ford. She has publicly supported Kamala Harris. Her largest lifetime state-campaign donor is Nevada REALTORS PAC. The national REALTORS PAC has also given to Ilhan Omar. Her federal campaign has used Democratic consultants and compliance firms whose client lists include presidential campaigns, Planned Parenthood organizations, and Everytown for Gun Safety. She voted for SB 170’s data-center tax-abatement framework, accepted at least $9,000 from Switch-related interests and more than $20,000 from Nevada’s dominant electric utility, then called for a timeout on data centers after the expansion became politically costly. She also accepted $2,500 from TitleMax nine days after federal regulators announced a $9 million penalty against the parent company for misleading borrowers, and $2,500 from JUUL after the FDA had issued a warning letter over unauthorized claims and outreach involving students.
Why the record matters
None of this is secret. The votes are public. The statements are public. The donor totals are public. She has said she is proud of the voting record that produced them. In a general election that record supplies a direct contrast: government mandates on restrooms, pronouns, curriculum, and business preferences; repeated tax increases; support for a public option, union expansion, and wage and leave mandates; abortion policy that rejects parental notification and protects taxpayer funding for major providers; energy and housing votes that raise costs; immigration measures that expand benefits and limit enforcement; and election changes that expand mail voting and automatic registration while opposing stronger verification.
Northern Nevada includes rural communities, parents, small businesses, energy workers, and homeowners who feel the effects of higher taxes, higher bills, and expanding rules. Teresa Benitez-Thompson’s consistent votes and associations place her on the far-left end of the national Democratic spectrum. She is the most radical left-wing Democrat on the ballot in this year's midterms.
