Georgia Republicans Are Walking A Tightrope In The Race To Replace Mtg

When President Donald Trump endorsed prosecutor Clay Fuller for Congress in a Northwest Georgia special election this week, he conspicuously left out one person’s name.

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was left entirely unmentioned by the president she had once devoted her political career to supporting. Her high-profile break with him had led to her eventual resignation from Congress — and created the vacancy in the 14th District.

But Greene still looms large over the district and is fairly popular back at home. The Republicans running to succeed the former MAGA acolyte are being careful not to pick sides in the messy public divorce between her and Trump. The political dynamics at play are complex, local Republicans said, and Trump is a dominant force but not an absolute one.

“What I see mostly out of the district is pure sadness,” said former state Sen. Colton Moore, one of nearly two dozen candidates in the race. “The district loves President Trump, they love Marjorie Taylor Greene, and they're so disappointed and disheartened that these two weren't able to mend their relationship and continue to represent MAGA values,” he said.

The crowded field of GOP contenders has enthusiastically embraced the president and his policies, and several had been in direct contact with the White House as they sought Trump’s endorsement. But they haven’t mimicked the president’s attacks on Greene because her influence continues to matter, too. Three candidates privately told POLITICO they have tried — unsuccessfully — to reach out to Greene to discuss the race.

That outreach is a reflection of the significant popularity that local Republicans say Greene still enjoys in her former district despite the president’s barbs. Though Trump is still undoubtedly a kingmaker in the GOP, Greene’s enduring local support reveals the limits of Trump’s ability to excommunicate MAGA celebrities he helped create, especially among the voters who elected them to office. And it’s come to a head as stirrings of GOP dissent — over the Epstein files, foreign intervention, tariffs, health care — have put Trump’s influence over his political movement and its future under a microscope.

The tension between Greene’s residual clout and Trump’s hold on the Republican Party has set up an awkward dynamic in the special election to replace her, in which embracing the former member of Congress can mean losing Trump’s fiercest loyalists, but disparaging her can alienate many of the same voters who also sent her to Washington twice.

“I wouldn't recommend talking about her at all,” said a longtime Republican strategist who has worked in the district, granted anonymity to speak about a sensitive topic. “I don't think praising her is good politics. But I don't think bashing her is good politics either, because there's still a lot of goodwill for her there.”

Trump and Greene’s relationship exploded late last year when she moved against the president’s wishes and helped lead the charge to pass a discharge petition to release the administration’s full records on Jeffrey Epstein, then repeatedly called on Trump to focus more on domestic issues. She also broke with the president on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies and bombing Iranian nuclear sites. Since her departure from the House, Greene has continued to speak out against what she sees as Trump’s departure from MAGA principles.

“I think people are realizing it was all a lie. It was a big lie for the people. What MAGA is really serving in this administration, who they’re serving, is their big donors,” she said in an interview last week on the Kim Iverson Show.

Despite the highly public break-up, local Republicans believe Greene’s popularity with local voters would ultimately have outweighed her split with Trump. “If she had run for reelection, even with Trump saying nasty things, she would’ve won again,” the strategist said.

Greene’s political power could also have served as a counterweight to Trump’s endorsement — setting up a test of both — but Greene has made clear she is not interested in influencing the race to succeed her in the House. Months before officially vacating her seat, she said that she will not issue an endorsement in the special election.

The race to serve out Greene’s term is coming fast. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp authorized a special election for March 10, and 22 candidates officially qualified for the primary race, including 17 Republicans hoping to represent the deeply conservative district. (One of the GOP contenders dropped out prior to Trump’s endorsement announcement, calling for Republicans to unite behind Fuller.)

If no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters will proceed to an April 7 run-off. But the race hardly ends there, because that election is only to finish Greene’s term. Anyone could also choose to enter the regularly scheduled May 19 primary to compete for a full term.

In separate interviews with POLITICO, three of the top Republicans running for the seat acknowledged Greene’s fight with the president but tried to keep it at arm’s length from their own campaigns.

Fuller, who spoke to POLITICO before Trump endorsed him, noted he had a working relationship with Greene and said he was not planning to run prior to her retirement announcement. He said that Greene “ loves this community” and was a “warrior” for the district, but demurred when asked about the Greene-Trump blow-up, saying he had not been “really paying attention, much, to any sort of divisions between Representative Greene and President Trump.”

Moore, a hard-right former state senator, said he had not spoken to Greene about the race. He argued that the falling out between Greene and Trump was about “personal disagreements” and said he wasn’t interested in discussing it. “I'm not getting into it,” he said. “She's history now. She's no longer the congressman. We're looking forward, we're running this race.”

Another challenger, former Paulding County Commissioner Brian Stover, expressed his position more bluntly: “There's 20-some candidates I’ve got to worry about instead of worrying about hers and his relationship.”