New Delhi: Indian-American physician and Democrat Amish Shah holds an early lead in Arizona’s District 1—one of the country’s most competitive seats—in the US midterm elections.
According to the Associated Press, Shah won 1,44,706 votes (54.6 per cent) compared with his Republican opponent, Thomas Feely IV, who secured 1,15,218 votes (43.5 per cent) as of 2.43 pm Monday.
Shah is an Indian-American emergency medicine doctor and three-term former Arizona state Representative. He is the Democratic nominee for Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, running against Feely, a former NFL kicker and sports broadcaster.
Shah and Feely are in the race for the seat currently held by Republican David Schweickart.
During the October Congressional Debate, Shah and Feely squared off directly over economic policy, inflation, and healthcare. The Republican accused Shah of embodying the far-left wing of the Democratic Party.
Shah hammered Feely on his relationship with Trump, telling voters that backing the former NFL player would only cement the federal policies that have led to a skyrocketing rise in costs for everyday Arizonans.
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Amish Shah’s politics
Shah is a moderate Democrat and Emergency Room (ER) doctor whose politics are built around healthcare. His central message is lowering premiums, capping prescription costs, and protecting medicare, medicaid and social security.
Shah’s father is Jain while his mother is Hindu. Shah did his BA in economics from Northwestern University.
He served three terms in the Arizona House—from 2019 to 2024—where he says he passed more bills than any other Democrat in a decade by working across the aisle. He worked on issues such as public health, education and animal cruelty.
He had earlier said, “We need universal single-payer medicare for all.”
He is pro-choice, supports Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a US immigration policy protection, opposes Trump-era tariffs as a tax on families, wants middle-class tax relief, and has taken a local stand against data centres over water and energy use. Republicans attack him as “Socialist Shah” for his past praise for Senator Bernie Sanders, his single-payer comments and votes they say were soft on border enforcement. Democrats present him as a bipartisan, kitchen-table affordability candidate trying to flip a R+1 suburban district.
Before entering politics, Shah worked as a researcher at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and also served as a team physician for the New York Jets.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)
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