Republican voters between Chattanooga and northern Atlanta suburbs have heard plenty from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Too much for many. Georgia’s redistricting plan has done her no favors, says former Dade County Republican party chair Tom Pounds. Greene’s antics have inspired several primary challengers.
Jennifer Strahan, a self-described mother and Christian conservative, won’t repeat Greene’s racist and antisemitic tropes or conspiracy theories. “Strahan is among a small group of challengers during Georgia’s May 24 primary who argue they can deliver Republican values without the sideshow,” reports the Associated Press:
“You don’t always have to go around and tell people what she has done or said,” Strahan, the 35-year-old founder of a suburban Atlanta health care advisory firm, said in an interview. “That’s known.”
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“I think people in this district are mostly tired of her crap,” Charles Lutin, 69, a retired physician and Air Force flight surgeon who is another Republican trying to unseat Greene, said in an interview. “It’s not anything like 95% are tired of her. But I think it’s a good strong majority.”
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David Harvey, an 85-year-old retiree in Rome, Georgia, voted for Trump in 2016, but he-said the former president so divided the party that it led many Georgia conservatives to stay home rather than keep voting Republican. He said he wouldn’t vote for Greene, who he believes “rode Trump’s coattails” to notoriety for all the wrong reasons.
Greene, permanently banned from Twitter, has also been stripped of her committee assignments. Even so, says Pounds, “she will be very difficult to defeat based on the far-right, rural area support she has.”
Strahan sells herself as the conservative alternative without the drama. She hopes to defend unspecified freedoms she sees at risk.
Lutin is Jewish. He condemns Greene’s “hate and blatant antisemitism.” Lutin styles himself “anti-Trumpist,” an advocate for lower government spending, but for higher taxes on the wealthy. Some GOP officials, especially in the district’s northern-most, rural reaches “have been openly hostile,” to Greene facing a primary challenge, Lutin said without saying more.
Democrats are lining up to run for Greene’s seat. One has a familiar approach:
Distaste with Greene has also fueled donations for Democrats, with Army veteran Marcus Flowers raising $4.6-plus million by the end of last year. Three other Democrats vying to face Greene in November’s general election collectively took in nearly $2 million.
That includes Holly McCormack, a 37-year-old small business owner and conservative, rural “dirt road Democrat” from Ringgold, near the Tennessee line, who was recently turned away from a Greene town hall in her hometown.
McCormack said her campaign identified 12,000 likely Democratic voters who had moved into the district but not registered. Still, she knows she’ll have to attract Republicans to have a chance, and has tried to boost her bipartisan appeal — including having dinner with the Harley-Davidson Club in rural Walker County, “so they can see I don’t have horns.”
It’s a line I actually use as an ice-breaker with conservatives sometimes. I may be a lefty but I do try to fit in, I tell them. I try to keep my horns ground down and my tail tucked in.