Challengers Already Targeting Rep. Greene For Reelection

GEORGIA — After just over a month in office, outspoken U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene already has several challengers considering running against her in 2022.

Two Democrats — Brittany Trambauer-Smith from Dallas and Marcus Flowers from Bremen — have filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission, according to multiple reports. Greene's predecessor, retired U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, seldom drew strong challengers over the decade he was in office.

Meanwhile, Greene’s Republican challenger in the primary, neurosurgeon John Cowan, told The Rome News-Tribune Monday he was “undecided” about whether he would run again. He’s kept a high profile in the media over the last few months, mostly responding to questions about Greene.

Cowan — who tweeted that he was “all of the conservative, none of the embarrassment” when running against Greene — represents part of Georgia’s GOP that wants to keep the freshman congresswoman from weighing down the rest of the ticket.

“Rep. Greene is an embarrassment to Georgia,” Republican state Rep. Bert Reeves told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “She is the face of radical political extremism, and we don’t need that distraction.”

Republican state senator Chuck Hufstetler of Rome, who shares some constituents with Greene, echoed Reeves' sentiments.

“We need to be a party of ideas, not a party of slogans and sensationalism,” Hufstetler said to the Associated Press. “The fringe people push people away and don’t help anybody out.”

At the same time, most Georgia Republican politicians like Gov. Brian Kemp have avoided challenging Greene directly, and one Republican who did confront her has since backtracked. U.S. Rep. Jody Hice — who said Greene’s social-media posts were “appalling and deeply troubling” when he withdrew his endorsement in June — rallied behind Greene last week after she was removed from several House committees.

Some Georgia Republicans are considering a less direct approach to containing Greene, according to the Atlanta newspaper: re-drawing her district later this year to make it harder for her to be re-elected.

Greene's constituents love her, think she's like Trump

Still, Greene has remained mostly defiant even after she was stripped of committee assignments.

“We have basically a tyrannically-controlled government right now: the Democrats," Greene said on Feb. 5 while apologizing for comments that appeared to support QAnon. She added that being kicked off of her committees “freed” her to fight her opponents.

Greene spent her first month in office introducing articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden, along with cosponsoring bills to support the U.S. flag, fight abortion, stop tax breaks for sanctuary cities and dismantle the Department of Education.

"Never before has a freshman member made such an impact in such a short amount of time," Greene's office said in a news release Tuesday. "While the Fake News Media has been focused on personality, Congresswoman Greene has been focused on policy."

Many of Greene's constituents in Georgia's deeply conservative 14th congressional district love her combative stance.

“The people here, the voters, voted for her to be there,” said Lydia Hallmark, a Republican activist in Paulding County. “And I will defend that all day long.”

Hallmark told the Associated Press she didn't support Greene before she won office by running unopposed in November, and won't defend what Greene said on social media. But she said Republicans who refused to vote for her before are rallying around her now after what they see as a power grab by congressional Democrats.

“All this is doing is consolidating her 14th District for her,” Hallmark said.

Whether this newfound support will endure through the 2022 elections depends on what Greene does next, Hallmark said. “I think the ball is in her court. It’s how she votes, how she speaks for us and how she conducts herself going forward.”

Atlanta tea party leader Debbie Dooley counts herself among the Georgia Republicans who cringed over Greene's success last year. She thinks the Democrats have only made Greene stronger.

“Hell, I am defending Greene and that is something I thought I would never do,” Dooley tweeted Thursday, accusing Democrats of creating a double standard by not penalizing some of their own members over controversial statements.

“The Trump grassroots, Republican grassroots in general are sick and tired of weak-kneed, spineless Republicans like Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan,” Dooley told the Associated Press. “They want someone who’s a fighter, someone like Donald Trump. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is a fighter.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Read more in The Rome News-Tribune

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