Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district is in disbelief at her resignation announcement

By Jeff Zeleny, Eric Bradner, CNN

Rome, Georgia (CNN) — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation announcement sent a shock through her northwest Georgia district, even as people were monitoring her high-profile falling-out with President Donald Trump.

“It took me watching her resignation video for about 5 minutes to realize that it was not an AI-generated video — that’s how shocking it was for me,” said Ricky Hess, chairman of the Paulding County Republican Party. “And talking with everybody else, nobody saw this coming. I don’t know a single person who knew this was going to happen.”

Greene’s announcement Friday, which blindsided Republicans in Washington, is still reverberating in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, which stretches from Atlanta’s northwestern suburbs to the Appalachian foothills bordering Tennessee. Hess noted it’s too early to tell who might run to replace Greene in part because Greene’s announcement was such a surprise that other well-known Republicans had not planned for a potential vacancy.

The ruby-red slice of Georgia spans a dozen counties, where a strong majority of voters were loyal both to Trump and Greene – at least until their remarkably public split this fall.

“We wanted Marjorie to be Marjorie. We appreciate her,” said David Guldenschuh, a local Republican stalwart and lawyer who hosts a political radio show on WLAQ-AM in Rome. “She doesn’t blend into the curtains like other people do up in Washington.”

Guldenschuh, who also serves as the first vice chairman of the Floyd County Republican Party, said the recent feud between Trump and Greene caused a period of awkward uneasiness among the party faithful. He said he believed the two could have worked through their tension and found common ground.

“I’ve been having dinner with her when he calls her up on the phone, so it’s that kind of relationship,” Guldenschuh told CNN Monday. “We looked forward to the day when they would work through all this.”

A sense of disbelief at the congresswoman’s resignation came alive in conversations on Monday along Broad Street, a downtown Rome shopping district freshly decorated for Christmas. Several people said they admired Greene for her convictions, while others described her as wrongly prioritizing national issues over matters of local concern.

“If one were to say, ‘What has Marjorie Taylor Greene done for her entire district? What has she done?’” said Virginia McChesney, a retired schoolteacher. “We can’t name a thing.”

“She was focused on things that she thought would get her ahead and when that suddenly stopped, that was the end of that conversation,” McChesney added.

That sentiment was not shared by others, including Greg Garrett and Scott Preston, who were talking about the congresswoman during a brisk morning walk. Whether or not you agreed with every issue, they said, Greene represented her district well and did not deserve to be attacked by Trump.

“Obviously, I wouldn’t have called her a traitor, but that’s Trump,” Garrett said. “You know he hits back if you hit him.”

Radford Bunker, a public defender, said he was saddened by her decision.

“I think that she’s a thoughtful person,” said Bunker, who described himself as a conservative. “I’m just sorry that politics has come to the sort of tribalism where you have to agree with everything on everybody.”

Inside the Sunflour Community Bakery, Sunny Knauss was preparing for her morning customers. She said she had not been a Greene supporter until recent weeks but began reconsidering her views after the congresswoman stood her ground on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein case files, spoke out on the rising cost of health insurance and a handful of other issues in which she broke with Trump.

“I applaud her for breaking away from the pack because that’s a really hard thing to do in politics,” Knauss said. “There’s just a handful of people that are brave enough to do that, so I’ve got to hand her that.”

But after answering a few more questions, Knauss added: “At the same time, there’s a little bit of self-preservation going on, too.”

Candidates already angling for special election

Greene’s resignation will further tighten House Speaker Mike Johnson’s slim majority. When her replacement is selected is now largely up to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who must call a special election within 10 days of Greene’s departure from office, which she has said will take place on January 5.

The special election must take place at least 30 days after Kemp calls it, and if no candidate tops 50% in the contest featuring all candidates, regardless of party, a runoff featuring the top two finishers would take place four weeks later.

Georgia’s primary is set to take place on May 19. Kemp’s options include choosing to have the special election coincide with the primary or set the special election to take place earlier than that.

A Kemp spokesman declined to comment on the governor’s planned timeline for a special election but noted he cannot call it until Greene’s seat is officially vacated.

One potential candidate, state Sen. Colton Moore, has a penchant for controversy. He was arrested in January after attempting to enter the state House — where he’d been banned — for Kemp’s State of the State speech.

Moore had been banned after he denounced the late House Speaker David Ralston, calling him “one of the most corrupt Georgia leaders we’ll ever see in our lifetimes,” as some of Ralston’s relatives watched on a day the legislature was honoring him.

Moore said in a statement he posted on social media that he is “seriously considering” a run for the 14th District seat and cast himself as “a fighter who won’t bow to the swamp.” He positioned himself as a strident ally of Trump.

“President Trump’s shown us the way — putting America first by rebuilding our economy. I’m weighing how to be his partner in the House, draining the swamp, and making sure Georgia’s voice roars in Washington,” he said.

Conservative influencer CJ Pearson also floated a run, posting a photo of himself with Trump Saturday on X and writing: “I hear there’s an opening for Congress in my home state of GEORGIA!”

Democrat Shawn Harris, a retired Army brigadier general who lost by 29 percentage points to Greene in the 2024 general election, has already entered the race.

He said on social media that Greene had “started talking about the same issues I’ve been raising because she saw they were resonating with the people of Northwest Georgia” — including health care and economic growth.

“But the moment she shifted in that direction, her own party shut it down. They told her that talking about the real needs of this district wasn’t going to fly. And just like that, they pushed her out of the conversation,” Harris said.

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