Marcy Kaptur

Marcy Kaptur still lives in the Toledo house where she grew up.¹ Her family ran a small grocery store, and her mother helped organize a union at the Champion Spark Plug factory.² She was the first member of her family to attend college, leaving Toledo to study history at the University of Wisconsin.²

Kaptur later earned a master's degree in urban planning at the University of Michigan and worked as a city and regional planner in Toledo and Chicago.² She became a domestic policy adviser in Jimmy Carter's White House before pursuing doctoral studies at MIT.² Local Democrats recruited her to run for Congress during those studies, and she won her first election in 1982.²

An idea from constituent and World War II veteran Roger Durbin became one of her most visible projects: the National World War II Memorial, dedicated in 2004 after years of legislative work.² She is now Congress's longest serving woman and the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.²

Her current platform emphasizes preserving Social Security and Medicare, restoring Affordable Care Act tax credits and lowering prescription, childcare and eldercare costs.³ She also proposes expanding housing supply, limiting corporate advantages in the housing market and requiring data centers to cover the costs of their electricity and water use.³ She faces Republican Derek Merrin in a rematch of their 2024 contest.⁴ Protecting Lake Erie from harmful algal blooms and invasive species remains another stated priority.³