‘A two-edge sword’: Former top ICE official’s campaign roils battleground district

Republicans in Ohio are worried that a former administration official who helped oversee President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration tactics could cost them a chance to flip a battleground House district in November. The GOP has its best chance in years to oust longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur from her Toledo-area seat after the Ohio Legislature redrew her district — which Kaptur won by less than 1 percent in 2024 — to be more favorable for Republicans last year. But Madison Sheahan, who served as deputy director at Immigration and Customs Enforcement until she resigned to run for Congress earlier this year, has become the center of a contentious primary that GOP operatives in the state say could lead to the party squandering its chance to flip the seat. At the heart of the concern is Sheahan’s role at ICE, where she helped lead the president’s sweeping immigration raids across the country — a high profile role that could be popular with Trump-friendly primary voters but toxic to a general electorate that has been critical of the immigration crackdown. “Primary issues that help you win are a two-edge sword. They can help you in the primary, but they might pose challenges in the fall election,” said Ohio GOP strategist Terry Casey, who isn’t affiliated with any campaign in the primary. “There's obviously [a] debate of what happened in Minnesota and some other things.” Sheahan worked at ICE amid enforcement operations in major cities that triggered violent confrontations and protests. Those clashes culminated in the killing of two American citizens by immigration officials in Minneapolis. She launched her campaign days after the killing of Renee Good, but before the shooting death of Alex Pretti. Even as her role as a top immigration official has buoyed her in the primary, her ties to the controversial shootings — which forced the Trump administration to recalibrate its approach on immigration — have opened her up to attacks from primary opponents. And some R