Assemblymember Hanadi Nadeem 

• Nadeem, a Democrat, replaces Assm. Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod (D-Las Vegas), who did not seek re-election in 2024 and instead made an unsuccessful run for the Clark County Commission.
• She represents Assembly District 34, which encompasses Summerlin in Las Vegas. Thirty-seven percent of the district’s voters are registered as Democrats, 31 percent as nonpartisans and 23 percent as Republicans. 
• Nadeem beat Republican challenger Brandon Davis in the general election (53 percent against 47 percent). 
• She sits on the health and human services, judiciary and legislative operations and elections committees. 

Profile 

Hanadi Nadeem said she always had “had the passion to do something.”

Nadeem, 52, was raised in Islamabad, Pakistan — the country’s capital — by a family of physicians. As a child, she saw her mother buying medicine for her patients with her own money and helping those who otherwise couldn’t afford health care. 

Her mother’s benevolence informed her own perspective, motivating her to volunteer and establish her own nonprofit organization, Save God's Special Children, while still in school. The organization helps provide education to children with intellectual disabilities in both the U.S. and Pakistan.

Nadeem said that she’ll never forget the look of excitement when she raised enough money to give one group of children their first computer. 

“We started small. We started with just one class … Then we raised more funds, and with time, many classes. That was the kind of passion I had,” Nadeem said. 

Now, Nadeem has used that drive to become the first Muslim woman elected to Nevada’s Legislature. Nadeem has said that her favorite tenets of Islam — “to be honest, to be trustworthy, to work diligently” — have deeply informed her desire to be a public servant. 

During her campaign, Nadeem faced Islamaphobic attacks from her Republican opponent which she decried as divisive and fueled by hate. 

Since her election, Nadeem said many Muslim constituents have expressed how much her election has inspired them, even asking to visit the Legislative Building in Carson City. 

“It's a big motivation for the minorities and for the Muslim communities,” Nadeem said. 

Since arriving in Nevada over two decades ago, Nadeem has been civically involved, serving as a board member of the Nevada Equal Rights Commission and as president in 2018 of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani North America (APPNA), helping expand the organization through the creation of local chapters across the country. 

Nadeem initially moved to the United States for her husband’s medical residency in Philadelphia. After that, the pair moved to Chicago and afterward to Las Vegas.

As an adult, Nadeem says she is still propelled by that same drive she had as an adolescent, but it was the COVID-19 pandemic that really inspired her to run for public office.

“After COVID, I saw the homeless problem, the housing problem — it went up so fast,” Nadeem said. “So all these issues motivated me to run for a position.”

Today, Nadeem’s family tree is still dotted with physicians and Nadeem herself runs Shifa Medical Center, a primary care clinic, in Las Vegas. Her husband practices internal medicine and out of her five children, one of them is a physician while another two are studying medicine. 

Nadeem said this has all helped give her an inside understanding of the state’s health care system — one of her top issues this session. 

“Whether it is for affordable housing, taxing, the issue of homelessness, and gun safety reforms for my fellow Nevadans, all these issues are very near and dear to me,” Nadeem said. 

On the issues

Health care 

Nadeem says she is focused on addressing the state’s shortage of health care providers. 

One of the bills she sponsored this session (AB170) aims to increase pathways for associate physicians to practice medicine. By streamlining the process for licensure, Nadeem hopes that it will help address the provider shortage. 

Nadeem is also concerned about the state’s uninsured rate skyrocketing if potential federal Medicaid cuts go through.

“It's gonna make the situation very, very painful,” she said.

Education 

Nadeem said she supports funding universal free school lunches for all Nevada K-12 students — a proposal that was previously vetoed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. 

Nadeem also said that for now, she supports continuing funding for Opportunity Scholarships — the school choice program that provides private school scholarships to students from low- and middle-income households — but that the program may need to be re-evaluated in the long term. 

Gun control 

Nadeem said that she is in favor of raising the legal age to purchase certain semi-automatic weapons to 21 years old. She also said that she is in favor of  background checks for those purchasing firearms. Private sales and sales from gun dealers already require such checks.

Film tax credits

Nadeem said she would want to learn more about the benefits of film tax credits before saying if she  would support either of the two proposals lawmakers have introduced. 

Elections

Nadeem said she is largely content with the current election system in Nevada, but would be open to increasing staffing capacity to speed up the ballot-counting process. She supports keeping the existing system, through which mail ballots postmarked no later than Election Day can still be received and counted up to four days later.