A top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who was internally mocked as a “fish cop” for her past work leading a fish and wildlife department announced Thursday she was resigning and would challenge Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) in the 2026 midterm elections.
Madison Sheahan, a 28-year-old who was once the body woman of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, unveiled her bid for Ohio’s 9th Congressional District with a launch video heavily focused on her work as the deputy director of the increasingly unpopular agency.
“In less than one year at ICE, I’ve stopped more illegal immigration than Marcy Kaptur has in her 43 years in Washington,” Sheahan boasts at the start of the video, which features plentiful footage of her wearing bulletproof vests while out in the field and criticizes Kaptur for voting against the tax cuts and border wall funding included in the GOP’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill last summer.
Sheahan is not guaranteed the chance to challenge the 79-year-old Kaptur, who has stubbornly held onto her Toledo-based district even after a GOP-led gerrymander made it substantially more Republican in 2022 and 2024. (A further tweak to Ohio’s congressional map earlier this year made it even more GOP-friendly.)
