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Bellweather
Kay W.
January 25, 2026
My middle son lives in Toledo and he told me about this yesterday:
A top official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is resigning from her post after less than a year to mount a Republican campaign for Congress in a northwest Ohio district that is one of the most competitive in the country.
Madison Sheahan, 28, announced her campaign for Ohio’s 9th Congressional District on Jan. 15, challenging incumbent Democrat Marcy Kaptur, who won reelection by a narrow margin in 2024. The district includes Fremont and swaths of northwest Ohio.
“In less than one year with ICE, I've stopped more illegal immigration than Marcy Kaptur has in her 43 years in Washington,” Sheahan said in a campaign launch video.
Sheahan, who called herself a “Trump conservative” in the video, graduated from Ohio State University in 2019. She was on the women’s rowing team and studied public affairs, according to her biography from ICE. She was deputy director at ICE before resigning.
Sheahan worked for former South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem — now the secretary of Homeland Security, the department that includes ICE — and then as the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
“When the call came to help President Trump clean up the dangerous immigration mess as deputy director of ICE, I answered the call,” Sheahan said in her video.
Marcy Kaptur is also my rep - I have not changed residency to Michigan and will not until March 1st.
Kaptur is part of the Eastern European Catholic Democrats who were really prominent in Great Lakes politics up until the early aughts, when tons of their voters made a hard turn Right. They were generally pro labor and anti abortion - Kaptur was anti abortion right up to and through Obama’s two terms and she is absolutely pro labor. We lost a ton of her Catholic voters over same sex marriage in 2004 and they never came back. In fact, the only reason she was re-elected last cycle in a tight race is because of her long relationship with labor unions. As I have mentioned before, and despite what you’ll read on Bluesky, labor actually turned out for Dems in 2024, unlike a lot of groups. Democrats who don’t know anything about labor should probably stop opining on labor.
She has survived two GOP redistrictings and lavishly funded opponents the last four cycles. Kaptur is a Toledo institution at this point. Her entire family lives in Toledo and she knows everyone. She’s smart as a whip, hardworking, and was a populist before populism was cool. I’ll just give you an example of Kaptur’s style. I went to the national convention in Denver in 08 as a national delegate. I stayed in the designated “Ohio hotel” with the other Ohio delegates. Kaptur arrived at the hotel in the late afternoon and was immediately swamped with people who wanted to me meet/talk to her. I walked by her fan club on my way to the convention center. When I returned 2 hours later she was still in the hotel lobby, talking to Ohio Democrats. The scuttlebutt is she wants to retire but has not yet done so because she is afraid if she does the seat goes to the GOP (probably true).
Enter her newest opponent - the 28 year old far Right former ICE manager, Madison Sheahan. Sheahan has decided to double down on the GOP embrace of the sleazy, lying thugs of ICE. She is running as the MOST pro ICE, the MOST slavishly loyal to Donald Trump. I think Republicans are using NW Ohio as a kind of “fascist bellweather” state (see, JD Vance in Toledo last week).
Which is interesting, because both Ramaswamy (far Right candidate for governor) and Husted (incumbent who is Sherrod Brown’s opponent in the Ohio Senate race) are edging AWAY from the far Right. Ramaswamy has started talking about affordability and downplaying the far Right penchant for shooting citizens in the face in slavish obedience to Donald Trump.
Anyway, I’m glad Madison is running as the “I love the masked federal agents conducting summary executions in US cities” candidate. Let’s have that fight.
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