By Rich McKay, Jayla Whitfield-Anderson and Nathan Layne
RINGGOLD, Georgia, April 7 (Reuters) – Republican Clay Fuller, a former prosecutor endorsed by President Donald Trump, on Tuesday won a runoff election in Georgia to replace conservative firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to media reports.
Fuller, a former district attorney in northwest Georgia, defeated Shawn Harris, a moderate Democrat who had been trying to win over disaffected Trump voters, in the two-way race to represent the state’s most conservative district.
Tuesday’s runoff was triggered after no candidates secured an outright majority in a March 10 special election, held after Greene resigned from Congress in January amid a public rupture with Trump.
Harris, however, mounted a spirited challenge in a district that is heavily Republican. Two years ago, Greene defeated him by a nearly 30-point margin. With 86% of ballots counted, Harris had 42.5% of the vote and was trailing Fuller by about 15 points.
“Who would’ve ever thought that somebody who was endorsed by Donald Trump in a ruby-red district, that the race would be this close?” Harris told supporters in a concession speech.
Noting that Republicans had to spend time and money on the race, Harris added, “That tells you things are changing.”
Fuller’s win gives House Speaker Mike Johnson a little more room to maneuver in pushing legislation through the chamber, as it currently is nearly evenly divided with 217 Republicans, 214 Democrats, one independent and three vacancies.
Josh McKoon, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, also noted aggressive Democratic spending. “All the kings horses and all the kings men could not turn northwest Georgia blue,” McKoon told a crowd of more than 200 people who were celebrating Fuller’s victory.
Scott Johnson, 69, a retail banking consultant from Marietta, Georgia, said Harris’ vote tally was higher than he would like, wishing this was a clear blowout win for Fuller. “But we got our man in,” he said. “A win is a win.”
A MEASURE OF TRUMP’S INFLUENCE
The special election drew national attention as a measure of Trump’s influence in a district that became synonymous with the MAGA movement through its association with Greene, one of his most vocal defenders before their split.
Even with Harris’ defeat, his performance will be scrutinized as an indicator of whether Democrats can continue to outperform in special elections, and whether high fuel prices and voter unease over the Iran war are shaping the electorate.
Michael Bailey, a political science professor at Berry College, cited the district’s history of easy Republican victories, including Greene’s 2024 win with 64.4% of the vote to Harris’ 35.6%.
But Bailey, whose college is in the district, said the margin of victory will be parsed for clues about party strength and Trump’s standing with his MAGA base. One key marker, he said, was whether Harris could approach 45% of the vote.
“If (Harris) gets to 45%, that’s national news, in my opinion, because this is a heavily red district,” Bailey told Reuters, saying such a result could prompt some Republican lawmakers to rethink their allegiance to Trump.
“For Trump, above all, optics matter, and perception matters,” Bailey said. “If he isn’t seen as having a magic touch, there’s enough diversity with the Republican Party that there’s going to be some people breaking away.”
Georgia’s 14th Congressional District is a mostly blue-collar corridor stretching north from Atlanta’s suburbs to the Tennessee border.
HARRIS SOUGHT DISILLUSIONED REPUBLICANS
Harris, a cattle rancher and retired Army brigadier general, sought to appeal to disillusioned Republicans with a campaign focused on inflation and policies aimed at supporting small farmers and veterans.
He entered the race with a financial edge, raising about $4.3 million and reporting roughly $290,000 cash on hand as of the February 18 campaign finance filing.
Fuller, who was a White House fellow during Trump’s first term and is a lieutenant colonel in the Georgia Air National Guard, vowed to enact Trump’s “America First” agenda. On his campaign website, he describes himself as a “constitutional conservative” with a “tough-on-crime” record. Fuller raised about $787,000 and had $238,000 in the bank as of February 18.
Fuller will serve through the end of 2026 but must quickly pivot to campaigning for a full two‑year term beginning in January 2027, starting with a party primary in May.
The seat will be on the ballot in November’s general election, when all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and one‑third of the Senate will be contested. Democrats are seeking to regain control of the House, while facing steeper hurdles in the Senate.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Ringgold, Georgia; Jayla Whitfiled-Anderson in Rome, Georgia, Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Richard Cowan in Washington; Editing by Michael Learmonth, Cynthia Osterman and Stephen Coates)
