Jeffrey Gunter, ambassador to Iceland under Trump, announces Senate run in Nevada

Former U.S. Ambassador to Iceland Jeffrey Gunter announced Monday that he’s running for the U.S. Senate in Nevada, making him the third high-profile Republican to enter the GOP primary.

Gunter served as the U.S. ambassador to Iceland under former President Trump from 2019 to 2021 and joins former Nevada secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant and retired Army Capt. Sam Brown in the GOP primary to unseat Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.).

“I’m Jeff Gunter, and I’m running for U.S. Senate. I was honored and humbled to serve as President Trump’s ambassador to Iceland, where I fought the deep state, I fought China and I fought Russia’s influence in the Arctic in the great high north,” Gunter said in a more than three-minute campaign ad.

“Now I’m running to bring that same fighting spirit to stand up for every Nevadan. I’ll fight to support Donald Trump and his amazing and great America First agenda. I’ll bring jobs back to Nevada, I’ll reduce gas prices, making American energy independent,” he said later in the ad. “I’ll work with President Trump to finish the wall to secure our border. And I will cut endless bureaucracy to allow our great small businesses here in Nevada to thrive.”

Gunter also used his campaign to endorse Trump for president, making him the latest Republican in a competitive Senate race to back the former president in 2024.

“The fight to preserve our great country and the state of Nevada must be fought in the Nation’s Capital. We must, at all costs, protect our liberties and freedoms that are being trampled on by the far-left agenda seeking to destroy the very fabric our nation was founded upon: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” he said in a statement. “This is why I am proud to officially endorse President Donald J. Trump and challenge my opponent to do the same.”

Gunter’s Senate candidacy, which was speculated for weeks, received at least one key endorsement Monday from former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who narrowly lost to Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in the New York governor’s race last fall.

The announcement comes as Senate Republicans have sought to coalesce around Brown as their GOP nominee. Brown lost to Republican Adam Laxalt in the 2022 Senate GOP primary to take on Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.). Laxalt lost in November.

The nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report rates the seat as “lean Democrat.”

Gunter’s time in Iceland was, at times, marked by controversy. While serving as ambassador, Gunter reportedly wanted a firearm and heightened security over concerns about his safety in Iceland, though he ultimately did not ask to arm himself, according to a CBS report in 2020. 

The former ambassador left his post in Iceland to attend a conference in Washington just before the start of the COVID pandemic. It reportedly took him several months before he returned to Iceland after being contacted by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, CBS noted.