Deluge of funding flows into the 14th District for 2022 Congressional race
♦ Rep. Greene has raised an unprecedented $3.2 million in the first quarter. The leading Democrat has already raised over $500K.
An unprecedented amount of money is flowing to candidates for Northwest Georgia’s 14th District Congressional race in 2022 — a majority of which is going to current U.S. Rep. Marjorie Greene.
The Rome Republican has raised over $3 million, according the most recent campaign finance report filed with the Federal Elections Commission. She’s raised over $5.9 million since elected in November 2020 — an unprecedented sum for a freshman lawmaker.
A vast majority of her fundraising has come from out of state donors.
Just over 90% of the donors giving more than $200 — the amount at which the donation must be itemized — were from outside of Georgia. Of the $650,000 in itemized donations listed on the FEC site, approximately 39% came from Texas, Florida and California.
That’s a shift from her 2020 congressional campaign, which was largely self-funded.
The fact that many of her donations came from across the country added to the period when donations spiked shows the effect of a national audience on Greene’s fundraising.
Using lax social media rules alongside inflammatory rhetoric has repeatedly brought in money to her re-election campaign.
A graphic prepared by the Atlanta Journal-constitution shows large spikes in donations occuring when the national media focused on Greene.
The four largest spikes took place on Jan. 21, when Greene called for the impeachment of President Joe Biden on his inauguration; on Feb. 4, after Greene was stripped of her committee assignments; in mid-march, when her Twitter account was suspended for a short time; and in early April, when she likened the idea of vaccine passports to “Biden’s mark of the beast.”
The tactic doesn’t appear likely to change.
This past Friday, when a document from hard-right House Republicans discussing forming an America First Caucus surfaced, Greene’s name was one of the first lawmakers mentioned.
The goals of the proposed caucus championed “Anglosaxon political traditions” and warned that mass immigration was putting the “unique identity” of the U.S. at risk, according to the Associated Press.
The wording of the document was very reminiscent of racist and xenophobic wording from extremist groups.
Greene characterized the information as an attack aimed in the same week that her father died.
“On Thursday, I buried my father and held my mother’s hand as we said goodbye,” read a post on her Twitter account. “On Friday, sick and evil POS in the media attacked me with phrases I never said or wrote. They released a staff level draft proposal from an outside group that I hadn’t read.”
However, despite criticisms from her own party leadership, she defended what appeared to be the idea of the caucus.
“The scum and liars in the media are calling me a racist by taking something out of context. I believe in America First with all my heart and that means every American, of every race, creed and color...” the Twitter post reads. “There are tens of millions of Americans who agree...i have plans to drive President Trump’s America First agenda with my Congressional colleagues but we won’t let the media or anyone else push the narrative. America First policies will save this country for all of us, our children and ultimately the world.”
Several other Twitter posts to Greene’s page continued in that same fashion over the weekend.
Money flowing to Democratic contenders
Another point of interest is the money going to
her Democratic challengers.
Marcus Flowers, a Bremen veteran, has raised nearly half a million dollars since announcing his campaign earlier this year. Flowers has also found support from within the party, garnering an endorsement by former U.S. Senator Max Cleland last week.
Holly Mccormack, of Paulding County, has raised over $84,000 and even the shortlived campaign of Brittany Trambauer-smith raised over $30,000 before she dropped out. Another Dallas Democrat, Lateefah Conner, has raised over $20,000.
The last Democratic Party candidate to run in the race, Kevin Van Ausdal, raised upwards of $150,000 — the vast majority of which came in after online statements from Greene concerning Qanon and other conspiracy theories were exposed. The number of out-of-state contributions also picked up dramatically at that time.
At this point no competitors from the Republican Party side have announced they will challenge Greene in the primary.