Jay Feely (R) vs. Amish Shah (D)
I. The Race
Jay Feely (Republican) is a former NFL kicker and TV sports analyst now trying his hand at politics. He is looking to replace David Schweikert, who is leaving AZ-1 open after eight terms in the U.S. House because he decided to run for governor and get absolutely destroyed by Andy Biggs.
Amish Shah (Democrat) is a physician and former member of the Arizona House of Representatives. He failed to unseat Schweikert in 2024 and, although he has a reputation as a moderate from the legislature, has recently cozied up to many DSA-adjacent figures and positions.
II. District Geography
Arizona’s 1st Congressional District (AZ-1) occupies the northeastern corner of Maricopa County, including affluent cities like Paradise Valley, Scottsdale, and Fountain Hills, as well as segments of northeast Phoenix, which are more favorable for Democrats.
Despite its considerable Republican voter registration advantage, this district’s boundaries have been tough for President Trump and aligned Republicans for the past decade.
Presidential Margins
Practically everyone reading this will agree that the 2020 election in Arizona warped a lot of figures, including the margin in what is now AZ-1. Still, the Trump margins for all three of his races run far to the left of the GOP registration advantages for each year, and are mostly linked to GOP defectors in swanky places like Scottsdale and Paradise Valley, which featured nice gains for Trump in 2024 (which I will dive into in Section X).
Key Statistics
• 69.9% White, 16.4% Hispanic
• 91.5% Urban, 8.5% Rural
III. Market Assessment
Polymarket bettors have wagered heavily on Shah, whose shares are clearly overpriced.
IV. History
Prior to the 2022 election, most of the territory of what is now AZ-1 was called AZ-6, represented by Schweikert. Trump won those boundaries even in the 2020 election by roughly 4 points. The redistricting of Arizona post-2020 cut out more Republican-friendly areas of north Phoenix and replaced them with more Democrat-friendly neighborhoods closer to downtown, hence the reason for paper-thin margins this decade. Here is how the old boundaries, which still included the affluent establishment Republican areas in the district today, shifted from 2016 to 2018:
Despite being an overwhelmingly Republican district at the time, the 2016-18 shift met all the warning signs prominent that year. Trump underperformed Schweikert in the district thanks to the McCain feud and his perceived lack of Republican “street cred” in 2016, and in 2018, the margin essentially matched Trump’s. This was good enough to hold the seat, but the gaps in KS-3, CO-6, and other suburban seats weren’t enough to give the GOP incumbents room to breathe.
This anti-Trump trend continued through the awful 2020 election, when Schweikert held on by just 4.4% against Hiral Tipirnini. In two races since the seat has been redrawn, Schweikert’s margins have been equally uncomfortable:
• 2022 +0.8%
• 2024 +3.8%
I would have expected Schweikert to have a larger margin in 2022, a GOP House popular vote midterm victory, than I would have thought he’d get in 2024, when he won by 3.8% against Shah; this seems like a positive sign that Shah is seen as out of touch with the district and not likely to capture a tailwind like the one we saw in 2018 (which Republicans also didn’t see as vulnerable, and spend accordingly).
V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results
Both parties had seriously contested primaries, and Democrats have the worst fallout.
The deep pockets, lobbyist groups, and Democrat establishment all wanted broadcast journalist Marlene Galan-Woods to win the Democrat nomination. She came up 5 points short to Shah, who had no choice but to run toward the left-wing grassroots organizations – a pathway to victory in the primary but a potential millstone for the General Election.
Republicans also had a hotly contested primary. Rachel and I were pulling for former State Representative Joseph Chaplik, who is more aligned with the grassroots, but Feely pulled 49.8% of the vote and won the nomination, highlighting the continued divide between Republican establishment and the MAGA coalition in Arizona.
VI. Polls
Poll sourced from The New York Times:
Only one poll is on file for this stretch run, and it tells us next to nothing with 14% undecided and the race within the margin of error.
VII. Media Ratings
Sabato has this race as a “toss-up,” but the other three favor Shah by varying degrees likely predicated by the 2018 swing.
VIII. Party Registration
Party registration changes in AZ-1 only slightly favor Shah, as Democrats have closed the gap by less than 3,000, and less than half of a percentage point. These are net gains, a product of both parties losing membership since the 2014 election. It gives TPUSA a slightly diminished bench from which to chase ballots, but isn’t representative of a fundamental shift in voter behavior evident by registration analysis.
IX. Election Considerations
It will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has followed the battle for election integrity in America that Arizona is one of the worst states in the country for transparency, handling of mail-in ballots, long counts, and “bipartisan” cover for these activities. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, supposedly four Republicans to one Democrat, have constantly interfered with the efforts of Justin Heap, the new County Recorder, to streamline as much of this process as possible in a short period of time.
X. Summary and Election Estimate
At face value, AZ-1 looks like a perilous contest for the Republicans, facing an open seat, in a midterm year that is supposed to favor Democrats; however, there are three factors that give the Republicans the best odds of the two decisive house seats in the state:
Candidates. Shah beat out Galan-Woods, the media personality the Democrat and Maricopa establishment was trying to nominate for the race. He has had to adapt his positions and while he’s not a card-carrying DSA member, appealing to the new left is what got him the nomination. On the other side of that coin, Republicans nominated the establishment candidate, too.
Unfortunately for Shah, AZ-1 is a very establishment district, as observable by how far left of its registration it has been voting in the Trump era. Feely has come under fire for his positions on guns and for being wishy-washy with his past statements (and for some of his alliances, like those with the Clintons). It will be impossible to hang the “too extreme” label on Feely, as Chaplik’s opponents would have done with him.
The turbulence has settled down. There was a lot of volatility in this portion of Maricopa County at the beginning of the Trump era, but the almost all of the Republican precincts became more favorable for Trump in 2024. Here is my proprietary mapping of the district:
There are no “Super MAGA” (Trump with over 66.7% of the vote), but the positive indication here is that unlike VA-2, the district isn’t covered in yellow (precincts won by Trump but with at least 3% of leftward drift). The red precincts here are, for the time being, “friendlies.” The precincts in purple are heavily Latino, and those with solid coloring had movement toward Trump despite going for Harris overall.
Early turnout. As I sat down to write this assessment, Maricopa County released a bunch of ballots that went R+12.1%:
To understand how massive that is, it’s eight days until the election and Republicans just secured a drop that ran right of overall registration (R+10.7%, shown above). Overall returns in AZ-1 sit at R+4.1%. As this trend escalates, likely due to Latino voters sitting on their hands with lower enthusiasm, Feely will become more and more likely to hold the seat.
🚨NEW SWING SEAT UPDATE: Arizona Republicans are showing up for @jayfeely. Today’s Maricopa drop in CD1: 13,373 ballots @ R+12.1. GOP lead in early returns grew from R+3.2 to R+4.0. 5,850 more R than D ballots.
Ari Daniel Bradshaw (@AriBradshawAZ), Oct 26, 2026
Shah leads every applicable category in my decision matrix, although Feely has plenty of money coming in from outside spending:
However, despite having these advantages at his disposal, I think candidate quality and the TPUSA ballot chase differential puts this race on its head:
Forecast for AZ-1 House
As with all of my 55/45 calls, I consider this race a flip of the coin, with the lean being owed to either the core set of fundamentals or, in this case, a steady stream of data. The latest ballot drop and the success in low prop voter turnout appears to be making a dent, and I think Feely is massively undervalued in this race. Shah will need to see a major uptick in Latino Democrat turnout and hope there are a lot of soft Republicans voting for Hobbs that will tick Democrats all the way down the ballot.
Seth Keshel, MBA is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a retired Army Captain. He publishes Captain K’s Corner on Substack.
