Before starting this chapter, I want to make something perfectly clear.
Recovery from heroin addiction is not a small thing, and Ryan Hampton deserves real credit for getting to the other side of it.
Overcoming that kind of dependency takes a level of discipline and resilience that most people never have to summon, and voters should recognize that struggle for what it is.
But the issue here isn’t about his addiction or his recovery.
The issue here is that he’s been deceptive about his past in both this current election for State Assembly and the one he lost in a different district two years ago.
While Hampton was very open about his heroin addiction in his book, he’s hidden that aspect of his struggle on the campaign trail.
He’s sanitized the story, referring only to his initial addiction to opioid pills. Again, here’s his talking point in his own words:
“I’m Ryan Hampton, running for Nevada Assembly. When I injured my knee hiking in my twenties, the doctor prescribed opioids and addiction and despair began.”
We all know, from painful experience, that even the most “honest” of politicians often succumb to lying, misrepresenting, and fudging their positions once in office.
Now imagine someone with Hampton’s history of deception sitting in Carson City.
Well, we don’t have to imagine.
He’s already done it in this campaign with the other 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone is afraid to talk about.
Everyone but me.
* * *
On July 2, 2026 – after both Hampton and his Republican opponent, Erica Neely, had won their primaries – Hampton posted on X:
“As we celebrate America’s 250th, we need to talk about freedom. There are people running for office right now, including my opponent here in Nevada, who are on the record opposing basic rights like marriage equality. This isn’t just about my right to be married. It is about the millions of people whose fundamental rights they want to strip away, including the basic freedom to love who you love.”
And there it is. Playing the “gay card.”
While Hampton is very open about being gay in his book – which I’ll come back to later – he only barely touches it on his campaign’s website, writing:
“Home truly means Nevada for Ryan. It’s where he started his small business in 2019 and married his husband Sean in 2023…”
I guess voters are just supposed to put two and two together. Which is fine. Intentionally deceptive. But fine.
What’s not fine is accusing Erica of homophobia by falsely claiming in his tweet that she’s on record opposing gay marriage. That’s a lie.
I’ve been working with Erica for more than two years now and not once has she ever brought that issue up.
It was settled by the Supreme Court long ago and has nothing to do with the Nevada Legislature.
As for me, I double-dog-dare Ryan to make the same claim about me. If he does, I’ll embarrass him from here to Uranus and back.
No, what Hampton is trying to hide is his opposition to one of Erica’s signature issues in this campaign: protecting girls’ sports.
And he’s playing the “gay card” in an effort to avoid taking a public stance on it.
Protecting girls’ sports has nothing whatsoever to do with gay marriage. Suggesting it does is just a flat-out lie – the one addiction Hampton just can’t seem to shake.
Indeed, in chapter one of his book, American Fix, he writes:
“I was also exploring my sexual identity and finding my footing in the LGBTQ scene very discreetly. My identity added another layer to my already surreptitious drug use. I’d been lying about who I was for so long that it started to feel hardwired into my brain.”
Gee, ya think?
“I was already practiced at concealing that I was gay. My addiction was another thing to hide, from my family, my employers, and even some of my friends.”
A man hardwired to lie – to his family, his employers, and his friends – will obviously have no problem lying to the voters he wishes to represent.
Indeed, he’s already done it. And will do it again. He just can’t help himself.
* * *
Again, to be perfectly clear, the issue that should concern voters in Assembly District 9 isn’t that he’s a former drug addict. Or that he’s gay. It’s that he’s a habitual liar.
In fact, he’s even lying about why he moved into Assembly District 9 last year after losing his Assembly race in 2024. From a Nevada Current profile published on May 12, 2026:
“Hampton previously ran in Assembly District 4 in 2024 but lost in the general election. Following the race, he said his family decided to move into AD 9 after facing a rent increase.”
A rent increase? Let’s go to the tape…
Ryan Hampton and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager are joined at the hip.
And in that 2024 race the two conspired to pull off “a cheap and dishonest ploy” to elect Hampton by creating a phony PAC designed to “to suppress the GOP vote by lying to Republican voters” about Hampton’s GOP opponent, Lisa Cole.
I connected the dots and exposed the scam in October 2024, right before the election:
“Yeager’s PAC had already maxed out to Hampton with two $5,000 donations and couldn’t give him any more.
“So Hampton’s business partner created a ‘scam’ PAC to which Yeager funneled $100,000 from liberal PACs to do mailers and text messages attacking Hampton’s GOP opponent with misleading, at best, ads.
“This is money laundering along with false advertising. A disgraceful campaign tactic. If it was anything other than politics, people would be going to jail.”
Yet we’re supposed to believe that Hampton conveniently moved into Yeager’s Assembly district – after Yeager decided not to run again – because of “a rent increase”?
And there’s more.
Ryan Hampton has made a small fortune off his three book deals and speaking fees talking about his addiction.
And according to his 2026 Financial Disclosure Statement, his other sources of income come from Ryan Hampton LLC and his nonprofit organization, We Stand for Recovery LLC.
There’s also a web of inter-connected nonprofit organizations – Mobilize Recovery and Foundation for Recovery – fueled by government grants.
IRS records appear to show Mobilize Recovery generating $1.9 million in revenue for 2025, and Foundation for Recovery shows an additional $2.02 million for 2024.
And according to some quick research into Hampton’s campaign finance reports, it appears he’s put $192,787 dollars of his own money into his campaigns since becoming a candidate in 2023.
While it’s near impossible to figure out exactly where and how much of all this money has ended up in Hampton’s pocket, one thing is certainly clear: the man is no pauper.
But he moved into AD9 because of “a rent increase”?
Come on. Give us a break.
And still – despite all of this lying and deception and political shenanigans – that’s not the #1 reason the voters of Assembly District 9 should reject Ryan Hampton as their representative in Carson City.
And I’ll get to that in Part 6. Stand by (but here’s a preview)…
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“My election (as a Democrat convention delegate for Hillary Clinton in 2016) made it clear that people were ready to vote in support of this one specific issue.” – Ryan Hampton, “American Fix”
Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views, and founder of CampaignDoctor.com. You can sign up for his conservative, Nevada-focused e-newsletter at MuthsTruths.com. His views are his own.