Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has expressed support for the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory, won her race to fill the seat representing Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, according to projections from CNN and NBC News.
Greene’s victory was expected after the businesswoman won the Republican primary runoff in August in the deep-red district. The Democratic candidate in the race, Kevin Van Ausdal, dropped out in September.
Greene will replace outgoing GOP Rep. Tom Graves (Ga.).
Many members of the GOP welcomed Greene to the fold, with President Trump calling her a “future Republican Star,” despite her support for the QAnon conspiracy theory. The baseless theory posits that Trump and his allies are working together to expose and arrest an underground cabal of global elites who control the government and a run child sex trafficking rings.
Greene later walked back her support for QAnon, citing “misinformation.”
Greene’s race was thrust into the national spotlight in June after videos unearthed by Politico showed her making bigoted remarks, including comparing Democratic donor George Soros, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, to a Nazi and saying the 2018 midterms were like an “Islamic invasion of our government.” She also asserted that African Americans are “held slaves to the Democratic Party,” based on the reported comments.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement the group is “dismayed” Greene is projected to win her race and reiterated his call to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to block any members who have endorsed the QAnon conspiracy theory from leadership positions.
“We are dismayed that Marjorie Taylor Greene, who spread QAnon conspiracies and antisemitic and Islamophobic hate, is projected to win her race,” Greenblatt said in a statement. “As I wrote to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, now Congress must ensure that QAnon is blocked from any Congressional leadership position.”
Greenblatt wrote to the House leaders last week urging them to remove members who have “endorsed, given credence to or intentionally promoted QAnon content” from the Democratic caucus or Republican conference and decline to assign them to committees.