POLK COUNTY, Ga. — Northwest Georgia is such a deep red part of the country that sometimes Democrats don’t even bother taking a shot at the congressional seat in the state’s 14th Congressional District.
That was the case in 2016. And when conservative firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) came along in 2020, she captured nearly 75 percent of the vote after a primary runoff and cruised to reelection in 2022.
But now, in 2024, the election landscape looks a bit different.
There are actually Democrats — four of them — running in the 14th District. “Distaste” and embarrassment toward Greene among her constituents are growing, and with it, an opportunity to defeat and unseat her, the Democratic candidates told Raw Story in exclusive interviews.
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“I've had the thought for a while now that she's gonna lose this term,” said Deric Houston, a Democratic candidate based in Dallas, Ga. “I've even told my opponents, my Democratic opponents, one of us will be congressman next year. I did not anticipate that she would implode over the last two weeks, and make all of the GOP hate her as well, but that's just luck.”
Still, even under ideal circumstances, it's brutally difficult to defeat an incumbent member of Congress, particularly one with a profile as high as Greene's.
Shawn Harris, a Democratic congressional candidate in Rockmart, Ga., acknowledges that national polls make the 14th Congressional District look “unwinnable” for Democratic candidates — the Cook Partisan Voting Index, for example, gave Republicans a 22 percentage point advantage in the district in 2022.
But Harris said the district doesn’t feel like such a lost cause for Democrats. When talking with voters in the district, many across parties are fed up with Greene’s endless antics, such as her failed efforts to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from his leadership post, he said.
Neighbors also aren’t publicly boasting their support for Greene as they did in previous election cycles, Harris said. When driving through the district, ”you can't find one sign that says Marjorie Taylor Greene’s running for anything,” he said.
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“A lot has changed in the last two plus years,” Harris said. “Marjorie is in a fight with everybody in Washington, D.C., Democrats and Republicans.”
Greene could even come out of the running by doing “something wild,” said Clarence Blalock, a Democratic candidate from Hiram, Ga.
“She could resign, she could quit, she could get removed like Santos. Those are things that actually with her, those things become more likely,” Blalock said. During a recent visit to Greene’s Georgia district, Raw Story met with each of the four Democrats competing in the 14th District primary taking place on May 21. The winner advances to compete with Greene in November.
Greene’s campaign committee and congressional office did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.
But her Democratic foes have plenty to say about Greene — and why they believe they’d better represent the district she serves.
‘She's a joke': Clarence Blalock says voters deserve more than MTG
Democratic Clarence Blalock in front of a restaurant in Rockmart, Ga. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
Among the four Democrats running, Clarence Blalock is the only candidate who has previously run for political office.
Blalock lost his run for Atlanta City Council in 2021. Since then, he’s consulted on various Democratic campaigns.
“The premise of me running, in my mind, is that because I'm experienced, I know how to turn out people,” Blalock said. “I'll be able to get out more votes for myself, but not just myself, because this is one of 435, but also for [President Joe] Biden, also for people down ballot.”
Democrats this year are coming into the race on the tails of Democrat Marcus Flowers, who took on Greene in 2022, becoming the sixth largest fundraiser of all congressional candidates that year and out fundraising Greene by $4 million.
Greene still won but captured 10 percent less votes than in 2020, and the turnout for Flowers helped Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) keep the seat he flipped in 2020, Blalock said.
Democratic votes “were higher than it’d ever been” in the 14th District, Blalock noted. At least 10,000 more Democrats came out to vote in the 2022 general election compared to 2020, a presidential election year, according to Ballotpedia. Flowers is now running against incumbent Rep. David Scott (D-GA) in Georgia’s 13th District.
“We need to bring along Biden. We shouldn't be doing vote splitting. If [Donald] Trump wins, and I win, that's horrible,” Blalock told Raw Story during a meeting in Rockmart, Ga., earlier this month. “What if because I didn't advocate for Biden in Georgia, and Biden loses by 1,000 votes, how would I feel about that? It's selfish.”
Biden narrowly defeated Trump in Georgia during the 2020 election — a win that proved pivotal in Biden winning the election. Trump’s effort to overturn Georgia’s election result is at the core of a criminal case against him in Fulton County, Ga.
“Before you vote for Trump, he's a bozo. He's a liar. He's a narcissist. He wants to be a dictator for the day. I ain't putting up with it,” Blalock said. “You want to vote for him? You want to leave me off? That's fine. But I'm telling you, you can say what you want about Biden, I don't like everything about him, but it could be the end of democracy.”
Blalock’s campaign website features a video showing footage of the violence taking place during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection and calling out Greene for being a “key instigator” for the riot.
If elected, Blalock said he would prioritize accessibility to constituents by establishing three district offices. Greene does not have any congressional offices accessible to constituents.
“Where is she? I can't talk to her,” Blalock said. “MIA MTG. Where is she? Where's her office?”
Despite his criticisms, Blalock, who worked in a local government planning department for 10 years and is a geographic information system consultant by trade, said he hasn’t focused his primary campaign on bashing Greene.
“She's a merch salesman. She's a carnival barker. She's a joke. She's a disgrace. She's all of these things, but the reason I don’t talk about her is everybody knows, everybody sees,” Blalock said. “It's just a matter of reaching people.”
Blalock admits that a Democrat winning the 14th District seat in November is a “long shot.” It may require multiple election cycles to inform right-leaning voters about the benefits of electing Democrats because “the district is just too Republican,” he said.
“You have to look at the big picture, which is Trump being president is a much larger danger to our country, and how could you live with yourself if you’re in the House, but you didn't advocate for Biden, or that you ran away from it?” Blalock said.
Blalock, who lives in Paulding County, the southeast corner of the district that is still considered part of the Atlanta metropolitan area, is mostly self-funding his modest campaign effort, according to Federal Election Commission records. He has raised about $12,000, with most of the money coming in the form of personal loans or contributions to his campaign committee.
Shawn Harris wants to ‘come out of this primary dominating’
Shawn Harris on his cattle farm in Rockmart, Ga. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
Shawn Harris, a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army, is already trying to win over Republican voters even as he competes in the Democratic primary for Georgia’s 14th District.
“When I'm talking to people out there, specifically Republicans, I just simply ask them, ‘What has Marjorie Taylor Greene done for you in northwest Georgia in the last three and a half years?’” Harris told Raw Story on his farm in Rockmart, Ga., earlier this month. “What I always say to all the Republicans is this: ‘If you can't find anything that Marjorie Taylor Greene’s actually done, then give me a shot.”
Getting “Democrats motivated and not scared to come outside” is a part of Harris’s strategy, too. He says he is focused on visiting “every ZIP code in northwest Georgia, and he emphasized that he has “absolutely no fear.”
“They're not scared to come outside anymore, and the reason why they're not scared to come outside is because I'm not scared,” Harris said. “My philosophy is very simple. If I have negotiated with the Taliban in a cave, then I'm not scared to go anywhere in northwest Georgia, period.”
To ultimately take on Greene in November, Harris said he was open to Republicans splitting their votes between him and Trump for president — something that could hurt Biden.
“If they decide to vote for Trump, that's their business, but I'm trying to earn a vote between me and Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Harris said.
“I support President Biden. Period. No ifs, ands, buts about it,” Harris said. “Everything really comes back down to local. I'm running against Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
A top priority for Harris is to bring “generational jobs” to the 14th District, where people often drive to Chattanooga, Tenn., or Huntsville, Ala., for work. The sprawling district spans from the Tennessee border to the north to the outskirts of the Atlanta metro area and borders Alabama to the west.
“I want to make sure that you have a job that's close to your house so you don't have to leave your family every week, or sometimes for months,” Harris said. “I want to make sure that everybody has a great opportunity here.”
Improving access to healthcare, particularly specialists for women’s health and addressing local “health deserts” without emergency rooms, is a focus for Harris. So, too, is access to Veterans Affairs services.
As a cattle farmer, Harris would work to pass the Farm Bill to provide disaster relief to farmers and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding for low-income children.
“Everything that I talked about is doable. None of these things are super hard,” Harris said. “If you're willing to work with others, you can get things done. Right now, we have a representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene, nobody wants to work with Marjorie Taylor Greene, not even Republicans.”
Harris said local farmers approached him about running against Greene — as a Republican. When he told them he was a Democrat, they still encouraged him to run.
Harris enters the Democratic primary with a major cash advantage, having raised the most money by far— just over $364,000, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
So far, he’s spent more than 80 percent of the funds, with under $60,000 left in cash through May 1.
“I have no desire to stay in Washington, D.C., for the next 10 years. So what I'm telling you is after I get everything in place and systems in place, let's find somebody to replace me,” he said. “I'm not the guy that said, ‘I want to be a politician the rest of my life.’ No, I want to go, put things in place, get things moving the right direction, and let me come back and raise my cows and go on with my dream.”
Despite Harris’ cash advantage in the Democratic primary, Greene’s campaign committee, Greene for Congress, enjoys significantly more resources at this juncture — just over $1.2 million in cash according to the FEC. Through May 1, she raised over $5.3 million in the 2023-2024 election cycle.
“Not saying anything negative about the guys that I'm running against, but we want to come out of primary dominating to show to Marjorie Taylor Greene that we already got an army built. Now we’re moving in, and we're going directly at you,” Harris said. “She is taking it for granted that she's going to win it.”
Deric Houston wants Congress to be less ‘analog’
Deric Houston in a town square in Dallas, Ga. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
Deric Houston decided to run for the congressional seat in Georgia’s 14th District because he sees today’s Congress as “not ready for the future that's coming.”
“It's time for the digital generation to step up. I think it's time for the baby Gen X, millennials and Gen Z-ers, who have always been locked out of government,” Houston said.
Houston, a telecommunications professional, said watching Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) during a House Oversight Committee hearing with Twitter last year concerned him because of a lack of understanding of “the difference between the terms of service and the First Amendment,” he said.
“Everyone that we have in Congress right now is what I consider kind of analog. They're used to pen and paper,” Houston told Raw Story in Dallas, Ga., in late April. “Everything they do is pen and paper, and they want to see everything on pen and paper.”
Houston, a father to two school-aged children, said gun violence is of particular concern to him as “every day they come home is a blessing, and it's horrible to live in that world.”
“I think a lot of the community here has blinders,” said Houston, whose daughter’s high school recently went on lockdown in late April because of a student bringing a weapon to school.
Houston is pushing for gun reform that includes a seven-day waiting period, extensive background checks and gun safety and storage education.
Greene is an unabashed gun rights supporter who has harassed school shooting survivors and posted photos of herself brandishing a gun alongside images of her colleagues she calls “socialists.”
Houston’s advocacy against gun violence has hampered his fundraising, he acknowledged. He added that he doesn’t feel safe going canvassing at homes in the district, where gun ownership is high. Nearly half of all households in Georgia possess a gun, according to a 2020 study from the RAND Corporation.
“We were told pretty early on that, from a safety perspective, going door to door is not a good option because of the aforementioned Second Amendment and the MAGA crazies, honestly,” Houston said. “I’m not gonna risk having a gun pulled on me, my family, or anybody who's working with me because they want to knock on a door and say, ‘hey, this guy doesn't suck.’”
Houston has primarily loaned his campaign the $7,000 he’s so far raised, according to filings with the FEC.
Houston expects that the Democrat “who has the most publicity” will take the seat from Greene because many voters feel that her TV appearances have “made Georgia look like fools.”
Joseph Leigh on working against Democratic ‘scarlet letter’
Joseph Leigh with "Cheese" and "Quacker" in front of his home in Rossville, Ga. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
For Joseph Leigh, he said didn’t join the race for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District for a logical reason, as he works a “comfortable job” as the general manager at his father’s architectural firm. Running a campaign costs a lot of time and money, he said.
But Leigh, whose political idols are former Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt, wanted to run for political office because, he said, “I believe I have a better vision. I believe we need a new generation of leadership.”
“I come from this area. These are my people, my friends and family,” Leigh told Raw Story at his home in Rossville, Ga. “I want to do something to make this better, which I guess at the end of the day would make my friends and family better off.”
Getting Democrats to participate in the primary is a long-standing challenge for the district, where sometimes there isn’t even a Democratic option, Leigh said.
“It didn't used to be this way, but a ‘D’ is like a scarlet letter in this area,” Leigh said. “The moment someone sees you're a Democrat around here, sometimes a lot of people will turn you off.”
Leigh calls himself a centrist who “always would choose my country over my party.” For instance, he’s a gun owner and understands “gun culture” in the area having grown up in it, but he wants common sense gun safety reform.
Joseph Leigh gives a tour of the "Oval Office" in his home. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
“My whole goal of all this is to get to Congress, so I can work with Republicans, Democrats, Independents, whoever just so we can get things done, because I really don't care, if we're doing the right thing, it doesn't matter what you call yourself,” Leigh said.
Leigh has chosen not to bash Greene during his primary campaign — he doesn’t view her as his opponent yet.
“I'm trying not to focus my campaign on the incumbent,” Leigh said. “For better or worse, the voters here have elected her twice, and I respect that. I just think I can do a better job.”
Leigh has focused most of his campaigning on social media advertising. Much of the $17,000 Leigh’s campaign raised has come from himself in the form of contributions or loans. He has about $3,300 cash on hand, according to the FEC.
What about a Republican primary opponent?
Luke Farmer at a restaurant in Douglasville, Ga. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
One Republican wanted to take on Greene in the primary, Luke Farmer, but he didn’t raise enough money to qualify for the ballot. The filing fee to run is $5,220.
Farmer’s FEC filing does not include any fundraising information, and he estimated that he raised between $3,000 to $5,000.
“She's a Republican, but she's just a grifter. She’s only interested in theatrics, and call her what you want, MAGA or not, but I don’t buy it,” Farmer told Raw Story at meeting in Douglasville, Ga.
Farmer, a former Amazon employee and factory worker, said he felt Greene was running again to win favor with Trump to be a potential running mate.
“From most of the people I've talked to on my campaign, especially around Dallas, they feel like she's out of touch that she's not really a voice for them anymore,” Farmer said. “Quite frankly, a lot of people on the Hill feel that way. She's like a volatile handbasket. A lot of people don't know what she's gonna say next or do next, and while that's fine, and it draws attention, that's not what we need in the Republican Party.”
