Representative Majorie Taylor Greene’s campaign account spent nearly four times as much as it raised during the final weeks of 2022, according to new financial disclosures.
The Georgia Republican firebrand delivered her year-end filing to the Federal Election Commission last week. The latest filing chronicles her campaign fundraising and expenses from 29 November to 31 December 2022.
Ms Greene’s campaign raised $99,633.77 but spent $389,896.76, almost four times the amount of money she raised. The filing also shows that she had $1,958,194.38 in cash on hand.
The fundraising period came just days after Twitter restored Ms Greene’s personal Twitter account under Elon Musk’s ownership. Twitter had previously suspended her account earlier in the year. Shortly after her suspension, Ms Greene began to bleed money.
Twitter under Mr Musk’s leadership reinstated Ms Greene’s Twitter account on 21 November of last year, eight days before the fundraising period for the end of the year began.
Ms Greene’s campaign spent more than $800 on Uber rides and more than $5,600 on lodging in places as far and wide as Irving, Texas; Vandalia, Ohio; and Sioux City, Iowa. It also spent $28,011.09 in postage and delivery and paid $2,455.65 to LGM Consulting LLC for data rental and consulting. The campaign also spent $10,027.10 on flights with Delta Airlines, but $4,710.22 of it was was refunded. The campaign also spent $3012.61 with American Airlines for airfare.
The campaign account also contributed $2,000 to Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign as he engaged in a runoff campaign against incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock in her home state of Georgia.
Other incumbent members of Congress accounts operate at deficits given that they are not actively fundraising but have to keep up with maintenance of their campaigns. But Ms Greene’s ratio is outsized.
Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – a prolific fundraiser in her own right who like Ms Greene, represents a safe district where the opposing party poses no challenge – raised $244,602.70 in total contributions and spent $530,623.74 in total operating expenditures, spending a little more than twice the amount she raised. Representative Matt Gaetz, Ms Greene’s ideological ally, raised $81,123.81 in total contributions and spent $216,821.35, a little more than 2.5 times the amount he raised.
Ms Greene has found herself in a different place politically than when she first arrived in Congress. Long considered an ally of former president Donald Trump who has peddled various conspiracy theories, the House voted early in the last Congress to strip her of her committee memberships.
Since then, she became close to Kevin McCarthy. In the intervening weeks after Republicans won the House majority and the new Congress was sworn in, her erstwhile allies such as Mr Gaetz, as well as Representatives Andy Biggs of Arizona and Lauren Boebert of Colorado announced their opposition to Mr McCarthy’s bid to become Speaker of the House.
Conversely, Ms Greene became Mr Mr McCarthy’s biggest right-wing booster, even phoning Mr Trump on the floor of the House of Representatives to convince conservatives to support him. Ms Greene has since been reinstated to sitting on committees under the new Congress.
