Former ICE deputy loses Ohio GOP primary in battleground district

Madison Sheahan’s attempt to turn a hard-line immigration résumé into a congressional foothold ended Tuesday in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, where Republican primary voters chose former state Rep. Derek Merrin instead. Merrin will face Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur on November 3, 2026, in a seat Republicans are treating as one of their best pickup opportunities.

Sheahan entered the race with a profile built around enforcement. Before running for Congress, she served as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and then as deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where the agency said she oversaw personnel in more than 400 domestic and international offices and managed an annual budget of more than $9 billion. Her candidacy was widely read as a test of how far President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda could carry a Republican in a competitive district.

The result suggested limits. Ohio redrew its congressional boundaries in October 2025, and the new map made the 9th more favorable to Republicans than it had been before. Ballotpedia says the redrawn district would have favored Trump over Joe Biden by 51% to 48% in 2020. Even so, voters passed over Sheahan and backed Merrin, who lost to Kaptur by less than one percentage point in 2024 and now gets a second chance.

That replay matters because Kaptur is not an ordinary incumbent. She has represented Ohio’s 9th District since January 3, 1983, and is the longest-serving woman in the history of the U.S. House. For Republicans, the district stretching across northwest Ohio has long been a reminder that even favorable maps do not guarantee a win, especially when the general election turns on crossover appeal as much as base turnout.

Merrin, a former Ohio House Republican leader from Lucas County, ran as a MAGA-aligned conservative with local roots and recent near-victory on his side. His nomination now places a more familiar figure at the center of a race that may say as much about Republican strategy as it does about one district in Ohio. Primary voters appeared to favor a candidate with sharper partisan credentials and a clearer path to November, rather than one whose identity was tied most closely to immigration enforcement. In a swing seat shaped by redistricting and a veteran Democratic incumbent, that choice could prove decisive.