It's our first episode of 2026. We hope you had a great holiday season.
We tried to stay away from politics for a couple of weeks and almost made it before returning to work last week. Then came the military operation in Venezuela. Early Saturday morning, text alerts from NPR ended the vacation a couple of days early.
Since then, it's been a firehose-like stream of political news. Venezuela, ICE activity, the tragic shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis and false daycare fraud claims in Ohio: these stories dominated the news. We almost missed that Ohio's leading candidates for governor chose their running mates.
We'll get you caught up with our panel of Statehouse insiders this week: reporters Laura Bischoff of the USA Today Ohio Network and Jo Ingles of Ohio Public Radio, as well as Ohio State political scientist Herb Asher and Republican political strategist Terry Casey.
Snollygoster of the week
This week, the number two official at ICE quit and announced she is running for Congress in Ohio. Madison Sheahan will leave ICE to run in Ohio's 9th Congressional District, a district now held by long-time Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur.
Sheahan graduated from Ohio State, but has held positions in South Dakota, where she worked with then-governor and now Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. So this would be a homecoming for her. The GOP primary in northwest Ohio is a little crowded right now. In addition to Sheahan, State Rep. Josh Williams is running, as is former State Rep. Derrick Merrin, who very narrowly lost to Kaptur in 2024.
So maybe Sheahan is striking while the ICE iron is hot in deciding to return to Ohio, or maybe she's getting out before ICE gets too hot. Either way, it's probably shrewd. And she gets our Snollygoster of the Week award.