That last one deserves some healthy skepticism. But what does elevating Greene (R-Ga.) to the face of the party mean for the Republican Party? How do voters feel about the newly legalized, conspiracy-theorist congresswoman?
The survey made it clear that Americans clearly don’t think much of Green, at least for now. What may not be obvious is that even Republicans don’t seem to have much affection for her.
An Economist/YouGov poll earlier this month found that 26% of Americans had a favorable view of Greene, compared with 41% who had an unfavorable view. Green’s reaction is also much stronger on the left than on the right: While only 18% of Republicans have a “very favorable” view of her, nearly half of Democrats (47%) view her “very strongly.” view.
The poll has tested more than a dozen members of Congress and 2024 presidential candidates in recent weeks. Green’s numbers are better than one of them: embattled Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.).
Those numbers echo a poll in late 2021 that showed just one in 10 Americans at least “quite trust” Green, while more than four in 10 said they trusted “not much” or “not at all.” Don’t trust” her. Even Republicans have narrow distrust of her by a two-thirds margin.
A summer 2021 poll found that 36 percent had a negative view of her, while 17 percent favored it.
Filling in the picture is Green’s earliest congressional vote in 2021, when FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich compiled data on some of the most divisive Republican members. Green’s net image rating is lower than Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Reps. Lauren Bobert (R-Colo.) and Tracy McGrady. Sun Cawthorne (RN.C.). Among Rakic’s isolated eight members, she’s only outnumbered by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). (General unpopularity of party leaders is common.)
Boebert’s comparison is notable for another reason: Boebert has gained false notoriety in the 2022 election, and despite coming from a conservative-leaning constituency, she finds herself at a critical juncture in her re-election campaign — which seems to be the case. It was “Rage Entertainment” that conspired against her brand.
Less well known, a similar approach also appears to be keeping voters in Green’s district away.
Compared to the 2020 presidential election results in the same district, Green’s performance ranks bottom among Republicans in all 2022 Democratic-Republican congressional races in normal format (read: e.g. not ranked-choice voting) third. While Trump leads her district by more than 37 points, she wins by less than 32 points. Her district also ranks in the top 10 for shifting to the Democratic Party. Even though she hails from a red zone in the South, the vast majority of Republicans have fared much better than they did in 2020 in this scenario.
You can take a look at the following chart of the 2020 presidential election results versus the 2022 midterm election results, drawn by the Post’s graphics team, to see just how unusual this shift is. Her area is the area in the northwest corner of Georgia with a blue arrow surrounded by red arrows.
Green still won, of course, because her district was simply not competitive. That means she will likely serve in Congress for as long as she wants. Now that she cast a vital vote in the conference, McCarthy needed just about every vote and ally he could get, which made him welcome her into the mix.
But more and more, no matter what she does – promoting a vaccine conspiracy theory Provide some buzz about 9/11, space lasers, and/or mass shootings at the covid subcommittee hearings, or possibly the Homeland Security committee hearings – it would be easier to relate to the broader GOP , and are more difficult to dismiss as abnormal behavior.
She will no doubt test the wisdom of the GOP leadership’s newfound affection for her — especially now that her extreme political style appears to be costing the party so much in the 2022 election.
