GOP senators fear Marjorie Taylor Green could cost them Georgia Senate race

Republican senators are waving off firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from jumping into next year’s Georgia Senate race, voicing concerns that some of the “crazy” things she’s said in the past might come back to hurt her in a general election race against vulnerable Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.).

Greene says she is looking seriously at either running for governor or for Senate in 2026 and expressed confidence that she could win a primary contest. GOP senators acknowledge she would have a good shot at winning the nomination given her national prominence and solid standing with many Trump-voters.   

Those chances got a boost this week when Gov. Brian Kemp, who was Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-S.D.) top recruit for the race, said he won’t challenge Ossoff.

Republican senators fear that Greene, who has a knack for making headlines with controversial comments and generating enthusiasm from MAGA voters, could march to the nomination but lose in the general election — like former NFL star Herschel Walker did in the 2022 Georgia Senate race.

“We need to have the absolute best candidate and that includes electability. It’s very difficult to apply a formula for a very gerrymandered, very conservative congressional district into a statewide election with as much diversity as Georgia has,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said when asked whether Greene would be a strong general-election candidate.

“That is a swing state that’s pretty independent minded,” he added. “If I was to put my political science hat on and look at all the criteria, she wouldn’t be high on my list of recruits.”

Cramer wrote an essay for Newsweek in 2021 that called out Greene for endorsing some of the “crazier” theories floating around in conservative circles, such as claims that the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington were an inside job, or that the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida was a false flag.

He also flagged her suggestion in 2018 that a deadly California wildfire was caused by laser beams from space and that it might have been part of a scheme by wealthy financiers to clear space for a high-speed train line. She later deleted her post from Facebook.

“I think she’s recanted some of the crazier things she’s said,” Cramer acknowledged, but he insisted that “electability is one of the more important criteria in recruiting a candidate.”

“Sometimes we let ideology be more important and that’s a mistake,” he said.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R), who faces a competitive re-election race next year in North Carolina, a swing state, said that Greene could win the primary but questioned her viability in a statewide general election race, when appealing to independents and moderates in the suburbs is often critical to victory.

“I think she’d be a solid primary contender but the state’s a lot like North Carolina, it could be a challenge at the statewide level,” Tillis said.

Greene won re-election in 2024 with 64.4 percent of the vote in a congressional district spanning several heavily Republican counties in northwest Georgia. Trump carried some of those counties with more than 70 percent or more than 80 percent of the vote.

But if she ran for the Senate in 2026, Greene would have to be competitive in swing counties outside of Atlanta, such as Cobb, Gwinnett and Henry.

In last year’s election, Greene won the part of Cobb County in her district with 51 percent of the vote, which may bolster her optimism about running statewide.

Greene told NewsNation’s “The Hill” that she’s mulling either a gubernatorial or Senate bid.

“The polling shows I can win the governor’s primary or I can win the Senate primary,” she said. “That’s a choice that I can make, and I’ll give it some thought.”

Even so, some Senate Republicans are deeply skeptical about nominating Greene to knock off Ossoff, whom they view as the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent of the cycle.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a former two-time chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, chuckled when asked about Greene eyeing the Senate race.

“I’m sorry that Brian Kemp’s not running,” he said.

Asked who he would like to see as a candidate in the race, Cornyn said: “I want one that can win, I don’t know whether she qualifies or not.”

A spokesperson for Greene said that Senate Republicans are “afraid of her” and questioned whether senators poo-pooing the idea truly support Trump’s MAGA agenda.

“These are likely the same Republicans refusing to confirm President Trump’s nominees, like Ed Martin, because they never stood with [Trump] and still don’t,” the spokesperson said, referring to Trump’s controversial pick to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the White House this week that he would not support Martin’s nomination because of his advocacy for people charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Cornyn, another member of the Judiciary panel, was undecided on supporting Martin when asked about the nominee on Monday afternoon but then announced his support on Tuesday, explaining that he tends to defer to the president on such picks.

Greene’s spokesperson said she would cruise to the Senate Republican nomination if she jumps in the race.

“Polling shows Congresswoman Greene would blow out a primary. She has the same type of support President Trump has, and now he’s president,” the spokesperson said. “She has one of the largest digital files in all of Congress, has donors from all 50 states, and has over 11.6 million followers on her social media.

“Congresswoman Greene would be any candidate’s worst nightmare,” the source said.

Thune, who will wield enormous influence over GOP donors in 2026, says he’s staying neutral in the primary for now.

“I’m not going to weigh in on that just yet. There’s still a lot of conversations that are going to be held and there’s a ton of interest among the congressional delegation in Georgia, there are several statewide elected officials that are looking at it,” he said.

Georgia Reps. Mike Collins (R) and Buddy Carter (R) are also said to be looking at jumping into the race, as are Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper and Insurance Commissioner John King.

“I’m not going to pontificate on the viability of anybody at the moment but there clearly are always some candidates that are just better than other candidates in a general election,” Thune said.