[2] After retiring from baseball, Shambaugh returned to his hometown of Jay, Oklahoma in Delaware County to work as a police officer.
[2] In 2000, he ran for Delaware County sheriff in the Democratic primary against Lynden Woodruff, Jerry Littlefield, and Mike Dilbeck.
[12] In 2007, Shambaugh was Jay Chief of Police during the 2007 ice storm, during which half the city did not have power and the area was under a Boil-water advisory.
Incumbent Curtis Snell was term-limited and four candidates filed for the general election: Shambaugh, Anthony Cochran, Edward Crawford, and Clifton Hughes.
[21] In June 2021, Shambaugh ran for re-election and faced challengers Lawrence Panther and Joyce Nix McCarter.
"[25] In 2023 after Governor Kevin Stitt appointed former Cherokee Nation tribal councilor Wes Nofire as the Oklahoma Native American Affairs Liaison, Shambaugh published an op-ed in the Cherokee Phoenix comparing Nofire to General George Armstrong Custer's Native American scouts and criticizing his appointment because of his "peddl[ing] in fact-free unhinged and ideologically extreme conspiracy theories that pose a danger of political violence" such as the Jewish Indian theory, implying principal chief Hoskins is "the biblical 'beast'" otherwise known as Satan, and accusing the Cherokee Nation of "child trafficking.