By JULIE CARR SMYTH
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A prime ICE official resigned her job on Thursday in hopes of ousting the longest-serving lady in Congress, Democrat Marcy Kaptur, this fall.
In a video launching her marketing campaign for Ohio’s ninth Congressional District, former ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan mentioned she had stopped extra unlawful immigration in her lower than a yr on the job than Kaptur had in her 43 years in Washington.
“In Washington, hypocrisy, excuses and failure can earn you a lifetime job,” she mentioned. “However on my household farm, that may have put us out of enterprise.”
The announcement comes as President Donald Trump is decided to keep up Republicans’ threadbare Home majority this fall, so he can keep away from a repeat of his first presidency, when Democrats received management of the chamber in midterm elections and went on to question him twice. His actions have included candidate recruitment and efforts to stress states to redraw their congressional traces.
Sheahan, 28, a local of tiny Curtice, Ohio, close to the shores of Lake Erie, labeled herself “a Trump conservative.” Earlier than Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem tapped her for the ICE place in March, Sheahan served as secretary of the Louisiana Division of Wildlife and Fisheries and as Noem’s aide when she was governor of South Dakota.
In a resignation letter posted on the social media platform X, Sheahan thanked Noem and Trump for his or her “steadfast dedication” to the immigration company and expressed pleasure in what ICE has completed.
In a press release Thursday, the Kaptur marketing campaign mentioned, “Voters are bored with the self-dealing corruption and tradition of lawlessness they’ve seen during the last yr. They need a pacesetter centered on affordability and actual outcomes, and Marcy Kaptur persistently works throughout the aisle to ship each.”
The 79-year-old incumbent is accustomed to steep challenges in a Lake Erie-hugging district centered on Toledo, which has been drawn and redrawn to more and more favor the state’s ruling Republicans. A bipartisan map permitted final yr resulted in boundaries that give Republicans an almost 11-point benefit over Democrats for her seat, up from a roughly 9.5-point benefit in 2024.
In that yr, Kaptur defeated Republican state Rep. Derek Merrin by such an in depth margin that The Related Press didn’t name the race till official outcomes had been entered, greater than two weeks after the election. The ultimate end result was 48.3% to 47.6%.
The Kaptur marketing campaign’s assertion hinted at the potential of one other “messy main” — like the one in 2024 — shaping up amongst Republicans in search of the prospect to take her on in November.
Sheahan is the seventh Republican to announce a bid for the GOP nomination, a area that additionally contains Merrin. Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, thought of a doubtlessly prime contender to defeat Kaptur, was eliminated as a contender final week when he was named Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s working mate.
David Gedert, a Toledo-area entrepreneur who The Blade of Toledo has reported is healthier recognized on stage as drag queen Sugar Vermonte, is working as a Libertarian.
