A former state lawmaker is challenging a longtime incumbent congressman in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District. It's the latest of Democrats' many efforts to oust David Schweikert.
The district encompasses most of north Phoenix, Cave Creek, Scottsdale and Fountain Hills.
Schweikert has served in Congress for the past 14 years.
The district is majority-Republican, but Schweikert has won by smaller and smaller percentages each election over the past several cycles.
In 2014, he won with 65% of the vote, but in 2022 he won by less than 1 percentage point over Democrat Jevin Hodge.
Now, he’s running against Amish Shah — who says this is the year Democrats will finally win.
“In my field — which is medicine — a lot of people have been very frustrated that the system is not serving patients as well as it could. … So, I ran three times. I won three times for the Arizona state House of Representatives, and I became known around Arizona for knocking on doors. I've knocked on over 22,000 doors myself personally,” Shah said.
Before his election to Congress, Schweikert also served in the state House. He was then briefly Maricopa County treasurer.
Now, he serves on a few congressional committees, primarily related to finance — which he has always focused on.
Schweikert is a self-described “budget hawk,” focused on keeping the budget and spending under control.
He was instrumental in passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, commonly known as the Trump tax cuts. He says Medicare is a big part of the country’s spending problem and that it’s vital to spend less on health care costs.
He did not respond to interview requests for this story, but he spoke about the issue on the House floor in September.
“The big number says every dime of borrowing from today through the next 30 years, 75% of it is health care, mostly Medicare. We got older. And in 9 to 10 years, when the Social Security Trust Fund has been depleted, are we going to reach into the general fund to backfill it? How? How are we going to cover that?” Schweikert asked.
Shah emerged from a crowded primary, beating five other Democrats. He says his top five priorities are health care, education, democracy, the border, and the economy.
When it comes to working across the aisle, Shah says he can deliver.
“I have more bills signed into law than any Democrat in over a decade, all through a Republican Legislature. And so, I'm proud of the fact that we were able to actually move things along by working with the Republicans,” he said.
If elected, Shah says one piece of legislation he hopes to pass is a federal program based on Arizona’s clean elections law, to educate voters about important campaigns and require public disclosure of who is financially backing them.
Schweikert frequently emphasizes the need to lower America’s ever-increasing national debt — and criticizes his colleagues for not taking action, as he recently stated on the House floor.
“I know this place loves to come behind these mics and speech-ify, ‘I'm gonna cut so-and-so’s salary because they're a crap administrator.’ Great. You just took an hour of our time, that if we're borrowing $70,000 a second, did you help us? We seem incapable of doing things that are serious,” he said.
Schweikert was endorsed by former President Donald Trump in 2022 but is the only Republican Arizona congressman without Trump’s endorsement this year.
In 2018, the House Committee on Ethics investigated Schweikert and his chief of staff for misusing funds. In 2020, Schweikert admitted to 11 violations and paid a hefty fine.
He was found to have utilized “evasive” tactics to avoid more serious violations, according to the committee.
Schweikert was also criticized for campaign mailers accusing his opponent of “going both ways,” which he says was not an insinuation the opponent is bisexual.
In 2022, a consultant tied to Schweikert’s reelection campaign faced the same criticism for publishing campaign ads with an image of his male opponent, Elijah Norton, embracing another man with the tagline “Elijah Norton isn’t being straight with you.” Norton sued, arguing the ad implies he’s gay, and the case was settled for $50,000.
As for Shah, he took some heat from Democrats for briefly having registered as a Republican in 2016, which he said he only did strategically to vote in the Republican primary.
Shah also rankled Democrats as a House member for bucking the party and working with Republicans on some issues.
Congressional District 1 is one of only three districts considered competitive in Arizona’s general election.
If the Democrats win those races, they’ll hold six of Arizona’s nine congressional seats and move the needle toward Democrats retaking the House, which Republicans hold now by a slim margin.
-
Arizona lawmakers want to make sure non-governmental groups aren’t confusing voters with election mail that looks like it’s coming from county recorders and other election officials. -
The Show sat down with former state school Superintendent Jaime Molera with the firm Molera Alvarez and Matt Grodsky with Matters of State Strategies. -
Republican lawmakers want to bar the Arizona attorney general from bringing charges against county supervisors who refuse to certify future election results. -
Critics: GOP bill to strengthen protections against political prosecutions will help 'fake electors'A bill moving through the state Legislature would expand existing protections for Arizonans from politically motivated prosecutions and could provide new recourse for the so-called “fake electors” who stand accused of trying to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election. -
The group Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemptions collected over 19,000 signatures, surpassing the required amount to send it to the ballot.
