SCOTTSDALE – Jay Feely once missed three game-winning field goal attempts for the New York Giants in a game against Seattle. The performance was considered so egregious that a “Saturday Night Live” skit aired in the aftermath, titled “The Long Ride Home: The Jay Feely Story.”
“You can look at it. You can have a laugh at my expense,” Feely said, “but I do think that has prepared me for this opportunity.
“It took away that fear of failure. I had a lot more fun. I enjoyed myself more, I played better, and I try to take that into all areas.”
The opportunity Feely is referring to is running for the House of Representatives in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District as a Republican candidate with an endorsement from President Donald Trump.
After the 2005 SNL embarrassment, Feely’s football career carried on. In total, he played 14 seasons in the NFL. Four of those seasons were with the Arizona Cardinals from 2010-2013. During that time he followed the direction of special teams coach Kevin Spencer, but Spencer remembers a man with presence.
“I don’t think he was in Phoenix for more than 24 hours and he was already having lunch with Sen. John McCain,” Spencer said. “I mean, people would probably wish to have that happen to them at any moment in your life, and Jay shows up and next thing you know, he’s with Sen. McCain.”
Feely averaged an 85.2 field goal percentage over his four seasons with the Cardinals. He finished his career in 2014 playing for the Chicago Bears. He and his wife returned to Arizona with their four kids, settling in Gilbert. In 2015, Feely began his broadcast career as a game analyst and sideline reporter for CBS’ NFL broadcasts.
To begin his career in politics, Feely announced a campaign for the Fifth Congressional District in April of 2025. It is the district in which he has lived for 12 years.
In December 2025, he announced a switch to the Scottsdale district at Trump’s request. Trump hoped to clear the field in the 5th District for candidate Mark Lamb, and he enticed Feely to shift to CD1 with the promise of an endorsement.
“He would be a great leader for a community,” Spencer said. “So, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that this is the new venture in his life.”
The 1st Congressional District seat has been occupied by Rep. David Schweikert since 2023. Schweikert has been in Congress for 16 years, but he is not seeking reelection and is instead running in the Republic primary for Arizona governor.
Feely is running for the Republican nomination against Arizona Representative Joseph Chaplik and businessman John Trobough. The Democratic primary for the district is between Marlene Galán-Woods, Rick McCartney, Amish Shah and Jonathan Treble.
According to the Arizona Secretary of State, CD1 had 526,614 active voters in the 2024 general election: 144,611 registered Democrats, 202,808 Republicans, and 179,195 independent or other party voters. Schweikert won by 16,572 votes in 2024.
With no incumbent in the race, the tight voting record of the district has created the expectation that the seat could be won by a Democrat or a Republican, which could help the Democrats take the House majority.
“I think the importance of this seat is why the President reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, we need you to run in this seat,’” Feely said. “Then Speaker (Mike) Johnson called and said the same thing.”
Feely and his wife, Rebecca, have a charitable grassroots background. They lead the private fundraising for House of Refuge in Mesa, an 88-home nonprofit for single, homeless mothers. They also volunteer regularly at Hacienda Healthcare, a Phoenix-based nonprofit that provides residential and medical care for infants, children, teens and young adults with chronic illnesses, developmental disabilities and medical fragility.
“Everything that my wife and I have tried to do is to utilize the blessings that we’ve been given,” Feely said. “First through football, then broadcasting to impact other people’s lives. Of course, that’s what politics is supposed to be about. You’re supposed to be sacrificial.”
Feely and his wife took a volunteer trip to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake to help rebuild homes and run a feeding program for 100,000 Haitians a day. They worked with two young men they met there to go through the immigration process and get visas to enter the U.S. and attend college.
“I said, ‘This is your chance. If you screw up, you go back to Haiti. I can’t help you, but this is your chance to change not only your life but future generations of your family,’” Feely said.
The matter of Feely’s support of the two Haitians has been continually challenged by Chaplik, who has posted aggressive tweets on the matter, and launched the nojayfeely.com website.
Unfortunately for Jay Feely — illegal Haitian migrants will no longer be able to eat dogs, cats & swans in America!
— Rep. Joseph Chaplik 🇺🇸 (@JosephChaplik) June 25, 2026
Listen as Jay justifies and laughs about this depravity⬇️ https://t.co/Vj5xP87e3L pic.twitter.com/ZFFx2FZVd8
Feely said he has tried to avoid a similar approach.
“I prayed about it,” he said. “I said, ‘We’re not going to run campaigns that way. We’re not going to run based on slandering people, or lying about people, or trying to use things about their personal lives to tear them down.’”
Feely referred to Chaplik as “No Show Joe” in May during an appearance on PBS’ AZ Votes, which Feely and Trobough attended. There is also a website domain noshowjoechaplik.com that is paid for by Feely for Congress.
Chaplik sent a cease-and-desist to Feely in May regarding the nickname, claiming the Feely for Congress campaign was spreading libelous statements with malicious intent about the Representative’s state legislature voting record.
The Chaplik campaign has not responded to a request by Cronkite News for comment on their campaign against Feely.
The third Republican candidate, John Trobough, is a tech businessman also running for his first political office. He calls himself a Reagan conservative.
According to a flyer, Feely’s campaign promises include: “Securing our border, deporting illegal immigrants. Protecting our constitutional liberties. Keeping boys out of girls’ sports. Jump-starting our economy. Cutting taxes for the middle class. Always putting America first.”
Feely knew he needed guidance for his campaign so chose Taylor Zanazzi to manage it. Zanazzi has worked in campaigns since 2018. He was the political director for Young Kim’s 2020 California’s 39th District win. He managed Mayra Flores South Texas special election campaign in 2022, as well as Congressman Ken Calvert’s Southern California 2024 campaign for the state’s 41st congressional district.
“The one thing I knew was that I hadn’t been in politics before,” Feely said. “So you needed to have people that had experience, that had been through this process.”
Zanazzi’s experience flipping Democratic districts to Republicans will come in handy in the tight First District race.
“There’s three to five seats that are going to determine the House of Representatives majority, this being one of them,” Zanazzi said at an event hosted by the Huber family in North Scottsdale.
It was an intimate gathering at the family’s home on a Sunday afternoon. Joined by neighbors, they drank ice tea and ate pizza while Feely shook hands and addressed the group from bar stools in the front of the living room.
Greg Huber builds, remodels and sells parts for swimming pools. He found out about the Feely campaign by attending a friend’s similar event a month before he hosted his own.
“We’re hearing it twice now,” Huber said. “Even more, it just kind of sets in stone, I really do want to see him succeed.”
The Arizona Primary is July 21.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
