The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Greene raises big $$$, but foes lure cash, too
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has proved adept at monetizing controversy.
Politico’s Huddle newsletter reports that she raised $3.2 million in the first quarter of 2021. Quoting “a source close to her campaign,” Huddle says the haul came from roughly 100,000 donors. The official Federal Elections Commission report has not yet been filed. To give that cash haul a sense of scale, Huddle offered this:
“That is a staggering sum of money for a House member, especially for a freshman who is more than a year out from her next election. For context, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), then a freshman, raked in $728,000 in the first quarter of 2019.
“Greene appears to have actually benefited from all the controversies that have consumed her first few months in office. She directly fundraised off of Democrats’ decision to kick her off her committees for past incendiary rhetoric and warned her supporters that Democrats are trying to expel her from Congress.”
But Greene may also be helping her opponents pile up greenbacks.
Democrat Marcus Flowers, a U.S. Army veteran and former government contractor who is running as a centrist, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that since March 1 he’s raised roughly $500,000 from a pool of more than 20,000 donors.
Sure, $500,000 doesn’t seem like much stacked up against Greene’s $3.2 million take, but Flowers isn’t the only Democrat sensing an opportunity in Greene’s deeply conservative district in northwest Georgia.
More than a dozen potential candidates have taken initial steps to run for the seat.
Some senior Democrats caution that the party faces long odds in 2022 — in addition to the usual hit that the president’s party takes in a midterm, the GOP will be strengthening its hand when the Republican-dominated General Assembly undertakes redistricting later this year.
It might be better, they say, to direct that money toward Democrats in other congressional races.
Good options could include the 6th and 7th districts, where Reps. Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bourdeaux may be vulnerable after recently flipping what had been reliable GOP districts.