SCHOOL’S OUT FOR DINA: Speaker Johnson Hits Nevada Classroom With Carrie Buck as GOP Targets Titus

House Speaker Mike Johnson descended on Henderson Tuesday with Republican congressional candidate Carrie Buck, touring Pinecrest Academy Sloan Canyon and putting education, parental choice and Democrat Rep. Dina Titus’ opposition to President Donald Trump’s school-choice agenda squarely in the middle of Nevada’s hottest congressional fight.

Johnson and Buck visited five classrooms at the tuition-free charter school before holding a media availability focused on Trump’s new Education Freedom Tax Credit and Buck’s three-decade career in Nevada education. The setting was hardly accidental. Buck is a former classroom teacher, principal and charter-school executive who helped lead the Pinecrest Academy network before entering the Nevada Senate.

“The education freedom tax credit was part of the big, beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cut,” Johnson told reporters. He called the policy “the largest expansion of school choice in the history of the federal government” and said families at schools like Pinecrest could use scholarship funds for tutoring, educational materials and other qualified expenses.

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo formally opted Nevada into the federal scholarship program in January, opening the door for eligible families to benefit when it launches in 2027. The program allows taxpayers to claim up to a $1,700 federal tax credit for contributions to qualified scholarship organizations, which can then fund expenses including tutoring, private-school tuition and services for students with disabilities.

There is one Nevada politician who had a chance to help create that program and chose the opposite answer: Dina Titus.

Titus joined every House Democrat in voting against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year. The legislation passed 218 to 214 with the support of Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei, creating the education tax credit alongside Trump’s tax relief for tipped workers, overtime earners and seniors.

So while Nevada parents prepare to receive another option for educating their children, Titus’ contribution to the program remains a large red “NO” on the congressional roll call.

Johnson argued Buck offers precisely the kind of résumé Republicans want replacing Titus in Washington. “She’s been a principal, she’s helped reform education for students in Nevada, and had an extraordinary track record in doing so,” Johnson said, adding that Buck’s experience would benefit Republicans nationally if voters send her to Congress.

Buck made the contrast more pointed.

“My opponent has left Nevadans behind time and time again,” Buck told reporters. “I’ve served Nevada families for 30 years here in the trenches, in schools like this, making a difference, moving the needle. I want to do that in D.C. for families.”

That résumé gives Republicans an unusually clean weapon against Titus. Buck began as a Nevada classroom teacher, became a principal and helped turn around C.T. Sewell Elementary after taking over the struggling Henderson school. She later became lead principal and executive director of Pinecrest Academy of Southern Nevada and now serves as president of the Pinecrest Foundation.

Titus, meanwhile, has spent decades in politics and academia and is now asking voters for yet another term after opposing the very federal school-choice expansion Nevada’s Republican governor embraced.

The political ground beneath her is also getting shakier. Trump carried Nevada’s 1st Congressional District in 2024 after years of Democrat dominance, and Buck has now outraised Titus for three consecutive fundraising quarters, including an $812,000 second quarter that topped the incumbent by nearly half a million dollars.

Johnson said Republicans intend to finish the job.

“We’re going to flip this seat from blue to red,” the Speaker declared.

After Tuesday’s tour, the contrast practically wrote itself. Carrie Buck spent her career inside Nevada classrooms. Dina Titus sat in Washington and voted against giving Nevada families more choices.

Now voters get theirs.

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