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April 7th Len’s Political Note #718 Marcy Kaptur Ohio 09
2026 General Election
In a couple of months, Marcy Kaptur will be 79 years old. In 1980, Republican Ed Weber defeated the incumbent Democrat Lud Ashley. Apparently, Ashley, who had been in Congress for 26 years, had been there too long. The Democrats recruited a fresh new face to run in 1982. Marcy Kaptur was their candidate. She defeated Weber and has represented Toledo and environs ever sense. When she finishes her current term of office, she will have been in Congress for 44 years.
Marcy Kaptur does not hold the record, by any means. She is tied with Senator Dick Durbin for 38th longest serving Member of Congress. Seven members currently serving in Congress (three of them Senators) have been in office longer than Marcy Kaptur. She is the longest serving woman. More important, though, for elective office, she is the longest serving, of the nine (including her and Dick Durbin in the mix) in a competitive seat.
After redistricting which included only a part of Toledo in Marcy Kaptur’s districtg, Ohio Republicans thought they had her in 2022. Instead, they foiled themselves and nominated JR Majewski, something of a buffoon. She defeated him by 35,293 votes, a 57-43 margin.
Republicans were not going to make the same mistake in 2024. They recruited a young man – Derek Merrin – to be their candidate. The son of a man who was, at the same time, a public school teacher and a pastor, Derek Merrin graduated from Monclava Christian Academy, attended a community college, graduated from the University of Toledo, and from the Masters of Public Administration program of Bowling Green State University. A member of the Protestant Christian Right, Merrin had lost a House Speaker election to a candidate representing a coalition of more moderate Republicans and Democrats. The 2024 Congressional election was close. Marcy Kaptur won by 2,398 votes – a 48.3-47.6 margin.
When Marcy Kaptur was recruited to run for Congress, she had enrolled in a doctoral program in Urban Planning at MIT. He previous job was as the planning director for the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, working for the Executive Director Father Geno Baroni. Marcy Kaptur was a part of the Roman Catholic left. She may be the last important public figure who can make that claim.
When I write these pieces, I usually google the candidates name and scandal. You have to go back to 2010 to find an opponent claiming Marcy Kaptur was scandalous, that she received campaign donations from a lobbyist who was convicted for making some other illegal contributions. If you go back to 2017, you can find that she was old fashioned enough so that she was critical of the informal dress of women staffers in Congress (though, she was clear, in the controversy, that no matter what clothing a woman is wearing, harassment is not the victim’s fault).
It is easy to find instances of her expressing concern about corruption in public office. She made herself clear about how wrong it was that, in Ohio’s recent bribery scandal, not a single official of FirstEnergy was charged, let alone convicted for their illegal acts.
The world is different now from what it was when Marcy Kaptur was first elected. The organized Catholic left no longer exists. She had become sufficiently a moderate that Ross Perot asked her to be his running mate. Her earliest commitments show up, not only in her criticisms of FirstEnergy and her opposition to bailing out banks in the 2008 Great Recession.
On current issues, she is chair of the Ukrainian caucus, a proponent of the substantial support to Ukraine the Biden administration provided. Or more. During the Trump administration, she has been a particular opponent of Elon Musk’s role in the government. She combines the Catholic left’s priority focus on the poor and appreciation of the Latin American Liberation Theology, with her adherence to the Catholic opposition to abortion.
She learned these values from her family. Her father owned a small grocery. Her mother was a labor union organizer. Marcy Kaptur went to university where she learned some more about the world. Her undergraduate degree was from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Her Master’s in Urban Planning was from the University of Minnesota. Instead of getting a doctorate from MIT, she earned a degree in politics working more than 40 years in Congress.
Keep March Kaptur in Congress for two more years. Help her make it to 46 years. DONATE.
But First: Something you can do tonight. Support Democrat Allison Riggs in her effort to stay on the North Carolina Supreme Court. She won the election in November. Her opponent, Republican North Carolina Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin challenged 60,000+ voters who met North Carolina requirements when they registered to vote, but new laws called for additional information from them. The North Carolina Appeals Court gave those 60,000+ voters 15 days to “cure” their ballots (that is, to provide the additional information about themselves the new laws require). You can DONATE and help Justice Riggs. Tonight: You can JOIN A PHONE BANK and call some of those 60,000+ to urge them to fix their ballot. Phone banking is from 6:00pm to 8:00pm Eastern Daylight Time. At 6:00pm, on zoom, they will train you for your phone calls.
The six most vulnerable Democratic winners; the ones whose victories were by the narrowest margins
California 13 Former Assemblyman Adam Gray flipped this seat with a 187 vote win. DONATE. His likely Republican opponent is Javier Lopez, mayor of the small city of Ceres. See Len’s Political Note #716
California 45 Attorney Derek Tran flipped this seat with a 653 votes win. DONATE. We do not yet know who his Republican opponent will be, though some are urging Michelle Steel to run to get her seat back. See Len’s Political Note #717
Maine 02 Incumbent Jared Golden retained his seat with a 2,706 win. DONATE. We do not yet know who his Republican opponent will be.
Ohio 09 Incumbent Marcy Kaptur retained her seat with a 2,832 vote win. DONATE. We do not yet know who her Republican opponent will be, though some think her 2024 opponent Derek Merrin will run again.
Texas 34 Incumbent Vicente Gonzalez retained his seat with a 5,777 win. DONATE. We do not yet know who is Republican opponent will be.
North Carolina 01 Incumbent Don Davis retained his seat with a 6,307 win. DONATE. We do not yet know who his Republican opponent will be.
Please note. For this purpose, I have used the margin of victory reported in Wikipedia. It is worth noting that one report from 2023 identified the 12 most vulnerable Democrats. Two lost.
I have also asked you to begin making regular donations for a few 2026 statewide candidates:
Georgia’s US Senator Jon Ossoff. A former Congressional aide and investigative documentary reporter. He was elected in 2020 (2021 including the runoff) by a 50.6-49.4 margin. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #717
Arizona’s Governor Katie Hobbs. A former social worker and secretary of state. She was elected in 2022 by a 50.3 – 49.7 margin. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #712
Arizona’s Attorney General Kristin Mayes. A law professor and former Republican state Corporate Commission Member. She was elected Attorney General as a Democrat in 2022 by 280 votes, a 50.01-49.99 margin. DONATE. See Len’s. Political Note #714
Ohio’s Democratic Secretary of State candidate Bryan Hambley. An appealing Dr. Smith goes to Columbus running for an open Republican seat. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #715
