Amish Shah Wins 1st Congressional District Race

The results are in, and Dr. Amish Shah (D) will represent Arizona's 1st Congressional District in January, defeating former NFL player Jay Feely.

The Results

The current tally, with over 95% of votes counted, puts Shah at 52.58 percent, while Feely finished second with 45.38 percent, though the race has not been officially called.

The Battle

The latest poll recorded by 270 To Win, from Keating Research released on October 29th, gave Shah a small lead of 49% versus Feely's 45%.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) promoted Feely as part of its MAGA Majority effort, with spokesman Ben Petersen describing Feely in March as having "what it takes to go the distance and deliver a powerful election victory in November" and "a proud conservative and staunch supporter of President Donald Trump" who will "fight for border security, protect our freedoms, and put America First."

Shah, meanwhile, was derided for supporting statehood for Washington, D.C., his opposition to the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, and voting against House Bill 2312 in 2023, which exempted women's domestic violence shelters from gender discrimination lawsuits if they prohibited biological male employees or individuals from entering.

The race was considered a toss-up by the time Feely and Shah debated in mid-October, when they found common ground on water policy, preventing Iran from attaining nuclear weapons (even if Shah argued the Trump Administration bungled the conflict), and keeping illegal aliens off Medicaid.

But Feely got the drop on Shah on data centers.

"AI is coming at us quick, and we are going to need data centers," Shah said. "I just don't want them in CD 1."

Feely noted that Shah voted in favor of granting tax breaks to data centers as a state legislator, calling him "really hypocritical," although Shah replied that "at that time, when we had those tax credits come up, AI wasn't on the radar."