'She cannot win a general' election: GOP strategists fear MTG primary win

07 May

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia in July 2022 (Gage Skidmore)

NBC News reports that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision to pass on a Senate bid has top Republican officials scrambling to find a backup plan “and avoid a divisive primary — or, at the very least, one divisive candidate.”

Kemp declined to run for a Senate seat that polled slightly in his favor, possibly in hopes of stretching for an upcoming presidential run after President Donald Trump’s term-limited tenure ends.

What is left in that vacuum is the strong possibility of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene becoming the Republican nominee to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. While Greene won her deep red House seat last year with a comfortable 60 percent of the vote, her appeal in a statewide U.S. Senate election may be more limited.

The Washington Post reports “it’s pretty easy” to see her winning the GOP primary, with limited early polling suggesting a strong lead among Republican voters. But the independent vote in the general election could derail her as they did more-extreme Republicans in recent years, including firebrands “Mark Robinson, Doug Mastriano, Kari Lake, Blake Masters, and more,” reports the Post.

NBC News reports Greene’s “divisive reputation and rhetoric,” is a weakness, according to seven GOP sources familiar with the matter. This presents a problem for a battleground state that Republicans see as a crucial path to expanding their three-seat Senate majority.

A potentially crowded primary is “a concern,” one Georgia Republican strategist told NBC, adding that he hoped “the president and the governor end up getting on the same page and picking somebody.”

Greene built a national profile blaming California wildfires on “space lasers” and the January 6 insurrection on “Black Lives Matters." She’s also compared wearing medical masks during the pandemic to “the Holocaust.” Critics say her personality may not meld with a purple battleground state.

“She can win a primary. She cannot win a general [election] in Georgia,” Georgia Republican strategist Brian Robinson told NBC News.

Meanwhile, an anonymous “national political operative who has worked on key GOP races” showed similar concern that Greene could become “Kari Lake 2.0,” referring to the Trump-endorsed Arizona Republican who nevertheless failed to win the governor’s seat in the 2022 mid-terms and again in her race for Senate last year.

Read the full NBC News report here.

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