Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the worst members of Congress. The representative from Georgia’s 14th District is a far-right extremist who has endorsed conspiracy theories and made racist and Islamophobic comments; her views are so noxious that when Democrats voted to remove her from all her committee assignments, 11 of her Republican colleagues joined them. That lack of committee assignments makes her arguably the least powerful person in the House, but thanks to her constant, firehouse-like spray of incendiary comments (including a defense of the January 6 insurrection as “just a riot”) she’s one of the most visible politicians in the country.
This combination of toxicity and ubiquity has led to a movement of sorts among Democratic donors, who are contributing heavily to candidates seeking to defeat her. Though the district lines still need to be redrawn and a primary conducted before a challenger to Greene, small-dollar gifts have been flooding the 2022 election. This is terrible, and donors need to cut it out.
Greene’s district isn’t a place where Democrats can win
Democratic donors may not be able to understand Greene’s appeal. She comes across as so hateful, so obviously unfit for office, that it seems like she would be on thin ice with her voters. But she won her 2020 primary by a comfortable margin and crushed the poor, overmatched Democratic candidate in the general. Donald Trump won Georgia’s 14th District with about 75 percent of the vote, matching the performance of the previous two GOP presidential campaigns. This district, in other words, is a deeply conservative place that has proven it would rather elect a lunatic than a Democrat. And Greene’s popularity extends beyond her district. She’s raised over $6 million, three-quarters of it from small donors, for the 2022 cycle. So Greene is an incumbent in a district with few Democratic votes who has a massive war chest—the least inviting 2022 target you can imagine.
Now, Democrats should obviously run candidates wherever they can, and shouldn’t just surrender to the GOP even in places where they can’t win; running candidates in high-profile elections can help the party grow. And it seems weak to not field a candidate at all. But money will be needed in dozens of races across the country in 2022, as Democrats defend a razor’s-edge House majority. There are better uses of their money.
Too many Democrats are giving in to the dark side of political donations
And yet, three candidates preparing to challenge Greene have been raking in a lot of money. Most of that is going to Marcus Flowers, a US Army veteran who has secured endorsements from veterans’ groups to go with the $3.3 million he’s raised as of September 30. Also running to unseat Greene are Holly McCormack (who’s raised about $700,000) and Wendy Davis (just under $300,000).
Though Flowers’s haul is impressive, he’s going to be underfunded when compared to Greene. And some of this money being raised will inevitably be spent on the primary—meaning donations will be used up in competition with other Democrats to see who gets the privilege of losing to Greene.
Clearly, what’s happening is that Democratic donors are getting pulled in by the opportunity to unseat one of Congress’s most despicable members. But this opportunity is a mirage created in part by fundraising appeals implying that defeating Greene is more possible than it really is. Sometimes, these solicitations are made by candidates like Flowers; sometimes, the ask is for donors to split a gift between a candidate and an organization; at least one PAC is fundraising by linking itself to the cause of defeating Green when it’s unclear how much of its resources it’s actually devoting to that race.
All of these appeals are taking advantage of donors’ emotions: hatred of Greene, fear of a proto-fascist or just plain fascist Republican Party, a desire to hand a defeat to an obnoxious character on cable news. Many, many donors on both sides of the aisle are guided by these impulses (this is why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s opponent in 2020 raised $10 million for his hopeless campaign).
But ultimately, the only people these donations help are the consultants and operatives who make money providing services to cash-rich but vote-poor campaigns. I don’t think many donors would sign on to that. They should donate to candidates who have a chance to win and try as much as possible to tune out whatever horrible Republicans dominate the news.