Arizona’s Democratic voters selected Amish Shah to run for the Congressional District 1 seat, a candidate with an open history of support for socialist policies.
Shah beat Marlene Galan-Woods in the Democratic primary, despite the latter securing the endorsement of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Shah earned nearly 40% of the vote to Galan-Woods’ 34%.
The National Republican Congressional Committee responded to Shah’s primary win with an ad targeting Shah’s background, claiming that Shah’s proposed policies would raise taxes by an average of $4,000 per year for every family.
Upon review of his public sentiments and legislative career, Shah has advocated for policies that would impose a greater cost burden to the average taxpayer.
Shah admitted to supporting the socialist approach to healthcare through a universal single-payer system. The former lawmaker announced his support for the elimination of private health insurance in favor of solely government-run insurance during a town hall hosted by the Phoenix Democratic Socialists of America for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (VT) 2019 presidential campaign.
Shah said the free market system was broken and inadequate for a first-world nation.
“No other industrialized country or first-world country offers healthcare through a free market because it’s not really a system,” said Shah. To “take the problem and fix it, we need universal, single-payer Medicare for All throughout this country.”
This Koch borther's funded study showed a $2 Trillion savings by switching to Medicare for all. @Ocasio2018 responds brilliantly to this @CNN anchor. #BlueWave #LD24 #MedicareForAll #AmishForArizona https://t.co/wGYBQC2rmo
— Amish Shah, MD (@DrAmishShah) August 10, 2018
In another leaked video from a 2018 panel, Shah admitted to supporting the abolition of capitalism.
“We’re institutionalizing inequality. What we’ve got is an economic system that isn’t fair,” said Shah.
Shah’s first year in the legislature revealed the lawmaker’s deep progressive roots, nestled between his bipartisan support for less controversial legislation.
That first year, Shah cosponsored bills to collect evidence on gender identity or gender expression discrimination, to require parents to opt out of sex education curriculum (rather than in), to repeal the requirement for physicians to perform life-saving measures for children born alive due to a botched abortion, and to raise income taxes for education.
In subsequent years, Shah would sponsor or cosponsor bills pushing for automatic same-day voter registration, expedited building permits for “green” buildings, repealing the state preemption on municipal regulations for pet dealers, electronic signature gathering for ballot initiatives and referrals, municipal banning of fireworks, criminalization of sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination, creation of a state plan to combat climate change, criminalization of hairstyle discrimination, requirement of annual testing in the school choice program, abolition of the death penalty and allowance of bail for capital offenses, and the repeal of detailed abortion reporting.
Even having taken those stances, Shah has portrayed himself as more of an independent candidate with a “D” next to his name.
Shah pledged in this campaign to be as open with his progressivism as he has in more intimate gatherings, promising to run further to the left than he has done previously.
In a leaked video from an LD3 Democrats candidate forum earlier this year, Shah pledged to persecute President Donald Trump and Republicans and to work to undo Trump-led policies like the tax cuts for working families.
The public pivot by Shah represented a pointed shift away from his rhetoric of prior months and his prior campaign, when he lost the 2024 race for CD1 against Republican Rep. David Schweikert.
His political maneuvering didn’t hit the mark Shah desired: he underperformed both Kamala Harris and Ruben Gallego that year.
Trump-backed former NFL star Jay Feely won the Republican nomination for CD-1. Shah and Feely will face off to determine who will take over Schweikert’s seat in November.
Be the first to comment