WASHINGTON — At a recent rally, former President Donald Trump suggested that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., run for the Senate.
“Marjorie Taylor Green, you should be here. Want to run for the Senate? I will fight like hell for you, I tell you,” Trump said in Waco, Texas, drawing a cheer from the crowd.
Days later, on Capitol Hill, Green’s eyes lit up when asked about Trump’s proposal.
“I didn’t talk to him about it, but it was great that he said it at the rally!” he told NBC News.
Asked if it was something she should consider, Green said: “I don’t know. Yeah, I haven’t thought about it.
The next Senate race in Georgia will be in 2026, when first-time Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff’s seat will come before voters.
When asked about the possibility of facing Green, Ossoff gave a stern answer: “Anybody can run. I am ready”
Green is a second-term congresswoman who has developed a reputation as a right-wing firebrand and promotes conspiracy theories, something she continued to do in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday. Greene has also privately indicated an interest in being Trump’s running mate in 2024 if he is the nominee.
He represents a safe GOP district in north Georgia that is out of reach for Democrats. But winning statewide in a state that has gone from red to purple after voting for President Joe Biden in 2020 and electing three Democrats in the last three U.S. Senate races is a very different task.
Georgia has a unique system where candidates must win 50% of the state to be elected – either on the first ballot or in a runoff between the top two finishers.
Some in the GOP believe the Greens cannot win statewide in Georgia.
A Republican from neighboring South Carolina who ran unsuccessfully for Georgia’s GOP candidates in 2020, Sen. Lindsey Graham said, “If you put his name on the ballot as a Senate candidate, I think it’s hard for him to get 50%. And 2022.
“I love a new model in Georgia,” he laughed. “I like [Republican Gov. Brian] Kemp Run. He would be my number 1 choice.
A Georgia-based Republican strategist put it bluntly about a Green Senate bid: “It means we’re going to lose. badly. He’s a worse statewide candidate than Herschel Walker.
In 2020 Sen. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., defeated Republican candidate Herschel Walker, Trump’s pick in 2022. Rep. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., chuckled when asked about Trump promoting Green.
“He has a history of picking Senate candidates in Georgia,” Warnock said. “See how it went last time.”
Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., is the only House member from Georgia, who represents a closely divided district, to not comment on Green’s election to the Senate.
Asked if he believed she could win statewide, Bishop laughed and said: “I wouldn’t vote for her.”
