Former Ohio state Rep. Derek Merrin secured the Republican nomination Tuesday night to take on Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) for a second time in hopes of ousting the longtime Democrat from a red seat.
Merrin will face Kaptur, the longest tenured woman in Congress, in the November election. The Ohio legislature made the seat more Republican in a mid-decade redistricting effort passed last year. Kaptur’s seat went from having voted for President Donald Trump by 7 percentage points in 2024 to 11 percentage points in the new map drawn by the state legislature.
Kaptur beat Merrin in 2024 by just over 2,000 votes despite Trump carrying the district. The narrow loss in a good year with Trump at the top of the ballot has Democrats confident they can beat Merrin in 2026, when the environment is likely much friendlier.
GOP primary polling showed a tight contest between Merrin, Republican state Rep. Josh Williams, and political newcomer Madison Sheahan. Until January, Sheahan was deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Merrin had the highest name recognition of the three after being the 2024 Republican nominee.
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In recent weeks, Merrin had come under fire for his ties to a consulting firm that was attempting to highlight Williams’s prior Facebook posts and memes, some of which were sexual in nature, between 2018 and 2022.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated the new district a “toss up,” as Kaptur has demonstrated considerable political endurance. Kaptur, 79, was first elected to the House in 1982.
