Jay Feely is officially headed to the general election.
Feely, the former NFL kicker and longtime CBS Sports analyst, won the Republican primary for Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, defeating former state Rep. Joseph Chaplik and businessman John Trobough. He’ll now face the winner of a still-uncalled Democratic primary between former state Rep. Amish Shah and former broadcast journalist Marlene Galán-Woods in a race both parties are treating as one of the most competitive House contests in the country.
Feely first entered the race in April 2025 for Arizona’s 5th District, the seat Andy Biggs was vacating to run for governor, after multiple reports suggested he was weighing a run while still calling games for CBS. Trump had other plans for the 5th, endorsing Mark Lamb instead, and by December, Feely had pivoted to the 1st District, the seat David Schweikert was leaving open for his own gubernatorial bid. Trump endorsed both Feely and Arizona GOP chair Gina Swoboda there before Swoboda dropped down to run for secretary of state, clearing Feely’s path.
Feely’s war chest drew on relationships he’d spent two decades cultivating inside NFL ownership suites, locker rooms, and broadcast booths, far more than it did on a traditional donor base. Federal Election Commission filings reviewed by the Phoenix New Times showed Feely raised more than $1 million through the end of 2025, with over $204,000 of it coming from figures across the sports world, including Roger Goodell, Jim Nantz, Charles Barkley, and several NFL owners.
Feely, who filed financial disclosures showing his CBS salary as part of the campaign process, had spent a decade at the network by the time he stepped away to run. He joined CBS in 2015 as a special teams analyst, moved into a full-time sideline reporting role two years later, and was still part of the network’s sixth NFL broadcast team as recently as 2024, working alongside play-by-play voice Tom McCarthy and analyst Ross Tucker. His special teams background occasionally got him bumped up to marquee assignments, too, including a spot on CBS’s broadcast team for Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.