Morgan Wadsworth, a Gen-Zer Taking on the Establishment to Help Northern Nevada Reach Its Full Potential

Morgan Wadsworth, 26, recently announced her run to represent northern Nevada in the U.S. Congress with a modern western styled flyer and website titled “Battle Born. Ready to Fight.” 

“I’m a sixth generation Nevadan and so my family has been here for quite a while,” the North Valleys grad and first generation UNR student told Our Town Reno in a phone interview this week ahead of June primary voting.  

“I grew up in a working class family and I've been working myself since I was 14,” she says not afraid of what lies ahead in terms of campaigning as a Democrat to be able to face off against Republican Mark Amodei, representing Nevada’s red leaning 2nd District since 2011.  Her first job was as a lifeguard at Wild Island in Sparks, while growing up with a single mom and SNAP benefits.  

She’s also been a waitress, bartender, veterinary assistant, dishwasher and janitor.  Wadsworth initially wanted to become a doctor but after a pandemic era break in her studies, she’s now switched to pre-law political science and legal studies.

Some of her advocacy, including for better health care, originates with the story of her grandfather who recently passed away, after a life of struggles stemming from being accidentally shot when he was a teenager during a hunting trip with friends in rural Lincoln County, in southern Nevada, where her family has a history of cattle ranching. 

“I had a cousin and my grandfather, they had to go to California a bunch of times to get medical care because they couldn't get it here in Nevada,” she says. “We have a huge shortage of specialists. We have a huge shortage of even non-specialists like family medicine doctors. We have a shortage of nurses. A lot of our rural communities still have problems accessing hospitals and emergency rooms.”

In terms of affordability, she’s also worried about rising rents and prevalent corporate home purchases in our Silver State.  

Environmental issues are another priority, including protecting water resources and public land.  

“A lot of people come into our state and they want to get these massive tax breaks and these massive sweetheart deals with the promise of jobs and you know, we've been burned by that before but we still for some reason keep doing it,” she says.  

Her run also comes from being “exhausted with a lot of our leadership in Nevada. I feel like a lot of them are inaccessible. A lot of them don't listen. They don't show up in our communities. They don't hold town halls... You have to listen to your constituents. You have to be accessible, you have to be available, you have to be accountable. You have to work for the people you're representing and not the wealthiest donors.”  

Her youth she says as an older Gen Z can be a strength, using her digital media abilities, while also showing up to events, from coffee shop crawls to mutual aid groups to meetings at libraries and appealing to younger voters who often feel disheartened by the whole political process.  

“I have the experience that matters the most, which is being a working class person in Nevada. Gen Z, we’re kind of getting the brunt of a lot of what's going on right now and we are severely under represented in federal government,” she said.  

Wadsworth thought of running as an independent but with all the signatures required for that, she says, and similar candidates then splitting each other’s votes in November she decided going through the Democratic primary makes the most sense.

“I put Nevada before I put political parties or donors first,” she concluded during our interview.  “Being born and raised here, these are the communities and the people that raised me, and that I've been around my entire life. This state matters a lot to me and I think that we have all the talent and all the resources to fix the issues that we're dealing with.  I think that we should be focusing on those issues instead of fighting each other and hating each other and all these things. Nevada is an amazing state and I want to see it reach its full potential.”  

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