Fewer people supported Marjorie Taylor Greene than Donald Trump in Georgia’s most pro-Trump district

And Greene was the only Republican Georgia congressperson to receive fewer votes than Trump in November’s election, a 5 percentage point gap.

Greene, who won her race convincingly, said she isn’t surprised that Trump received more votes in her district — 68% backed Trump while 63% of all voters supported her. Some voters skipped the congressional race.

The distance between her and the president says more about Trump’s appeal than the strength of her support, she said.

“He pulled Democrats, he pulled independents, he probably pulled people that have never voted before,” Greene said. “They felt comfortable checking his name and were like, ‘Eh, I don’t know about her.‘”

The Democratic candidate in the race, Shawn Harris, didn’t come close to defeating Greene, receiving 35% of the vote. But he still managed to win a bigger share of the vote than Kamala Harris in Greene’s deeply conservative district.

About 15,600 Trump voters supported Shawn Harris, according to the AJC’s analysis of cast-vote records, which are a ballot-by-ballot accounting of voters’ choices in each race.

“Marjorie does a whole bunch of talking about stuff, but she’s never got any action behind it,” Harris said. “I actually had Republicans that actually came to me and said, ‘Hey, I will do a commercial with you.’”

Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC

Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC

Support for Greene has slipped each election since she was first elected in 2020, when she received 75% of the vote.

Republican voters draw a distinction between Greene and Trump, said Michael Bailey, a political science professor who teaches American politics at Berry College in Rome, which is part of Greene’s district.

“There’s a fair number of Republicans who want a Republican president, but they don’t want her shenanigans. They’re not sure she’s an effective lawmaker,” Bailey said. “She’s willing to throw bombs and upend the applecart, but is she willing to work across party lines to pass legislation?”

Rany Logan, a voter from Rome who participated in an AJC poll last month, said she’s turned off by Greene’s style of politics.

“I like Trump much better than her. She just gets off the wall too quick,” said Logan, 66, who is retired from country club management. “I’m old school. There are ways to affect change. I know in politics, you have to get down and dirty, but she was just cruel to people, and I don’t care for that.”

Steve Willis, a voter from Dallas, said he doesn’t draw much of a distinction between Trump and Greene, whom he supports.

“She stood up for Trump almost every chance she got,” said Willis, a 69-year-old retired investigator. “They’re more similar to my way of thinking.”

Compared to Greene, voters in Georgia’s 13 other congressional districts of the state were more likely to support both their party’s candidates for president and U.S. House.

Among other Republicans in Congress, U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick received the most votes compared to Trump, overperforming his party’s candidate by 3 percentage points in his suburban district north of Atlanta.

Unlike Republicans, almost every Democratic member of Congress received fewer votes than their party’s presidential candidate.

Only U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop received more votes than Harris in his southwest Georgia district, exceeding her total by 2 percentage points. But his district is also the most competitive district held by a Democrat.

The Democrat who trailed Harris the most was U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, who received 1.6 percentage points fewer votes than her in a liberal DeKalb County district.