MAGA war in northwest Georgia: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s GOP opponent says she ignores veterans

A primary challenger to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is accusing the outspoken lawmaker of ignoring her constituents while ‘throwing bombs’ at both parties in Congress — and Greene’s opponent claims she’s got some support on Capitol Hill.

A battle is brewing in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, where two candidates for the House of Representatives are strikingly similar in policy — but Greene’s challenger believes the lawmaker has a ‘pattern’ of ignoring her voters. 

And they’re competing over who can be a better representative of Donald Trump‘s values in Congress, setting up an unusual battle in a faction of the GOP outside of the greater war for the party’s future. The former president swept the district in 2020 by more than 48 points over Joe Biden.

Businesswoman Jennifer Strahan conceded ‘there’s certainly going to be some overlap in terms of things that we believe or stand for’ with the GOP incumbent.

But she told DailyMail.com she’s heard frustrations from numerous voters within Greene’s district who feel largely unattended to — including multiple former members of the military.

‘We have one veteran who’s reached out to her office, I think 10 or 11 times, and hasn’t been able to get a response. And then obviously, we’ve heard others,’ she said.

Greene dismissed Strahan’s campaign against her and claimed it was the congresswoman’s aides she was insulting. 

After being accused by her primary opponent of neglecting her constituents, Greene told DailyMail.com: ‘No one knows or cares who this naïve candidate is but everyone knows and loves my staff. I’m proud and truly grateful for all of the hard work my staff has accomplished and couldn’t do it without them’

Jennifer Strahan is a healthcare advisory firm executive who bills herself as a ‘no-nonsense conservative’ alternative to Greene’s ‘celebrity’ stunts

‘This no-name candidate is not insulting me, she’s insulting my staff who are well known and loved by everyone all over our district. My staff have been serving people long before this clueless woman even moved to Georgia,’ the representative told DailyMail.com.

‘No one knows or cares who this naïve candidate is but everyone knows and loves my staff. I’m proud and truly grateful for all of the hard work my staff has accomplished and couldn’t do it without them.’

She accused the first-time candidate of ‘spreading lies.’ 

‘This candidate is taking pitiful advice from her DC consultants and not making any friends in NW GA by attacking my well-known and beloved staff in her desperate attempts for attention. She needs to stop lying and she owes my staff an apology,’ Greene said.  

Strahan’s campaign blasted Greene for ‘hiding behind her staff’ through the lengthy statement.

‘Rep. Greene’s refusal to take responsibility for her own failures is not surprising and is also exactly why Georgians are sick of her embarrassing behavior. She can hide behind her staff, but everyone knows leadership is from the top down. When real people are having problems and not being heard or helped, it’s something that should be addressed,’ Strahan’s spokesman said.

He added: ‘Spare us the drama and do your job.’

Strahan’s campaign on Thursday shared an audio clip with DailyMail.com from a morning town hall in which she can be heard asking a voter, apparently another veteran, whether he’s reached out to Greene’s office for aid.

‘She will not help,’ the man can be heard saying.

Strahan said in an interview afterwards, ‘It’s a pattern. It’s not just like one off things here or there. I mean, people aren’t able to get what they need.’

‘We’ve heard others that have said they’ve had to go to — to their dismay — the Democrat senators in the state to be able to get the services they need, because they can’t get it here in our district. And that’s just a shame,’ the primary contender said.

Greene’s office disputed the accusations, claiming she’s done multiple town halls with 150 to 200 people in attendance and that she’s processed 804 cases for residents of the Peach State’s 14th District since being sworn in in January 2021, including more than 100 with the Veterans Affairs Department.

Georgia state GOP Rep. Matt Barton said outreach to constituents from Greene’s office has been ‘outstanding’ and ‘super responsive’ in his experience. 

Barton told DailyMail.com he has not heard any information about Strahan’s outreach. 

Service provided by members of Congress to constituents who request it is known as casework. Casework is not a required part of a lawmaker’s job, but it’s commonly an expected part of voters outreach. 

Both claim to be representatives of Donald Trump’s policies. Strahan claimed Greene can’t enact them because no one in Congress takes her ‘seriously.’ Meanwhile Greene secured Trump’s endorsement earlier this month

‘If this aspiring politician knows of a veteran who needs help, but hasn’t attempted to connect them with out office, she’s holding their welfare hostage to score political points,’ a spokesman from Greene’s office told DailyMail.com. 

But Greene was also blasted recently for comparing military enlistment to ‘throwing your life away’ because of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy. 

‘I know a lot of young people don’t want to have anything to do with that. It’s like throwing your life away,’ she said on Lou Dobbs’ podcast on Saturday. ‘Not to mention how they’ve been forced to take the vaccine and the ones that didn’t want to take it have been discharged. Who wants to be treated that way?’

She claimed the Biden administration’s Pentagon was a ‘disaster’ and blamed the ‘woke ideology’ of the ‘sick and satanic left’ for its state.

To Strahan, whose brother is a Marine and grandfathers served in the military, Greene’s comments were ‘absolutely’ personal.

‘I will always support our military and servicemen and women. You know, these are problems that we see across the board, where again, she says one thing, but then she says another, so she speaks out of both sides of her mouth,’ she said of her opponent. 

Frustration with Greene does not end with the heavily rural district’s constituents, according to Strahan, who claims to have had ‘conversation’ about her campaign with federal lawmakers. 

She told DailyMail.com without naming names that she’s seen ‘support’ among federal lawmakers who she suggested are tired of Greene’s public-facing firebrand politics at the expense of working together to pass legislation.

Strahan (pictured campaigning in Georgia’s 14th District) also said she has ‘had a lot of conversation’ with current GOP lawmakers who want her to unseat Greene

Asked if she gets the sense they would prefer someone like her as a colleague, Strahan said that was ‘absolutely’ the case.

‘I have had a lot of conversation with current representatives and senators — and a lot of support — because at the end of the day, again, she throws as many bombs on the Republican as the Democrat side,’ Strahan said of Greene.

‘She’s not there to work with colleagues. And that doesn’t mean just by working with individuals — even if you disagree with them — doesn’t mean you’re sacrificing your values or your beliefs, but you have to be able to have those tough conversations around really important issues.’

A cornerstone of Strahan’s campaign has been Greene’s lack of committee assignments — which outside of House-wide votes, mostly freezes her out of the federal legislative process. 

House Democrats plus 11 Republicans voted to strip her of her positions on the budget committee as well as the committee on Education and Labor for her history of pushing baseless conspiracy theories online and promoting violence against leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before the freshman GOP lawmaker was sworn in. 

But Greene’s office pointed out to DailyMail.com that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in March that he would restore her assignments if Republicans won back the majority in this year’s midterms.

McCarthy had ‘said, multiple times, the 118th Congress will see Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene back on committees, even better ones than she had before,’ Greene’s spokesman said. 

‘She is looking forward to serving with Republicans in the majority.’ 

Greene was even asked to take part in an invitation-only Congressional delegation being led by McCarthy, sources on Capitol Hill told DailyMail.com.

The congresswoman also clinched Trump’s all-important endorsement earlier this month, when he praised her as a ‘warrior’ who ‘doesn’t back down.’

Strahan, however, doubts that Greene is putting the ex-president’s America First policies in action.

‘I support President Trump’s policies, and I feel like he did a lot of things that were very beneficial,’ she said. ‘We need to make sure that we’re sending  someone to Congress who can actually promote and protect those policies that brought a lot of strength and good back to our country. We don’t have that right now, because no one takes our current representative seriously.’

Like Strahan, Greene had never held elected office when she was elected on a wave of pro-Trump support in areas the former president won during the 2020 election — which he overall lost to Biden. 

Marcus Flowers, an Army veteran, is the top fundraising opponent to Greene. He’s running as a Democrat to challenge the incumbent Republican in November’s midterm elections and has raised nearly $4.7 million toward that goal in 2021

But since then she’s managed to rake in a massive war chest, raising nearly $7.5 million during her first year in office and ending 2021 with roughly $3.5 million cash on-hand. 

Available data for her challenger, however, shows Strahan only just began fundraising in July. In that time she’s received $106,561.40 in donations, with the majority in itemized individual contributions. 

She’s ending the year with most of it on-hand, just over $60,000. 

While the 35-year-old executive is the second-largest Republican fundraiser challenging Greene, four Democrats jostling for the opportunity to face Greene in November outpaced Strahan’s efforts.

They’re led by Democrat Marcus Flowers, who raised nearly $4.7 million last year.  

A poll conducted earlier this year showed Strahan trailing Greene by a large but not insurmountable gap — until respondents read some of the incumbent’s statements. 

In January, 450 likely voters in Georgia’s 14th district were asked who they would vote for in the May 24 primary by a TargetPoint poll obtained by Jewish Insider. 

At first, Greene held a large lead with 59 percent of support compared to 30 percent who backed Strahan. 

Survey participants were then told about ‘a number of anti-Jewish statements’ made by Greene as well as comments supporting the Nation of Islam, according to the outlet. 

The statements managed to level out support to 41 percent per candidate. 

According to internal polling from Greene’s re-election campaign, the congresswoman was the leading choice for 73 percent of ‘definite voters.’ That survey claimed to have only shown 3 percent of support for Strahan.