Morgan said the fact that he doesn’t live in the congressional district he's running to represent isn’t a problem — he's willing to drive to northeast Iowa for the many town halls he has scheduled in the coming weeks.
“[The 2nd District] is the area I identify as home, the area that I care about more,” Morgan said. “However, it’s not where I am currently at. I am someone that’s lived in rentals my entire life. The building that I’m currently occupying is not home for me.”
The U.S. Constitution allows members of the House of Representatives to live outside of their district if they are in the same state. Morgan also said he has deep familial ties in the northeast region, including relatives on both his mother's and father’s sides. Morgan graduated from the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.
“It’s in my heart, it’s not where I am,” he said.
Morgan's environmental agenda
Morgan said over the next four months, he has a rigorous town hall schedule where he will be sharing his primarily environmental agenda with people in every county in the district.
He said that agenda includes adopting both carrot and stick strategies to hold polluters of Iowa’s waterways accountable.
“I would like to see actual jail time for the decision-makers within the companies that have decided to prioritize profits over the lives of their communities and the safety of the environment,” Morgan said. “Because to me, that’s akin to murder, what they’re doing, and it should be treated as such.”
Morgan also emphasized his support for expanding residential windmills to move the state away from using coal and natural gas for power — forms of energy that he said present long-term problems.
“My dream would be a massive expansion of residential windmills, seeing residential windmills on every single house in America,” Morgan said.
A family loss prompts a candidacy
But he said what pushed him to run was the death of his father, who decided not to seek treatment after contracting the COVID-19 virus. Morgan said his father believed misinformation that the disease’s viral spread was liberal propaganda.
“He [died] alone and in pain in his trailer,” Morgan said. “When I saw that happen, I realized the horror of the Republican Party, the horror of right-wing extremism, of separating families, of being so filled with hate and pain that you end up dying.”
"When I saw that happen, I realized the horror of the Republican Party, the horror of right-wing extremism."Guy Morgan, Democratic candidate for Iowa's 2nd District
Morgan said he is running to stand up to Republicans on issues related to the environment, but also in the areas of education access and collective bargaining rights.
“The main way in my mind that people are able to survive in our world is through education,” he said. “And the way that anyone of lower class can be able to make enough money to put food on the table is through education.”
But education is something many Americans can't access, Morgan added
“A lot of people don’t have that option, and so unions are their only course of making sure that they get fair treatment, fair pay,” he said. “So I would love to see a strengthening of unions, especially around the right to strike.”
Morgan said he plans to focus on visiting small towns in the coming weeks to connect with people in the district and understand their visions for the future.
“My particular role is to actually stand up and fight for the constituents, to scream and shout at the top of my lungs to make sure that none of this can ever happen again,” he said.
Other candidates running
Morgan joins four other Democrats in seeking the party’s nomination: state Rep. Lindsay James, D-Dubuque; former nonprofit executive Clint Twedt-Ball, former nursing educator Kathy Dolter, and former state park manager Don Primus.
Republicans Joe Mitchell, Shannon Lundgren and Charlie McClintock are also running for the seat that is currently held by Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson. Hinson is running for U.S. Senate.
