District attorney Clay Fuller won a special election runoff to fill fellow Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene’s former U.S. House seat, the Associated Press projected Tuesday, widening the GOP’s House majority.
He defeated Democrat Shawn Harris, a retired Army general who ran against Greene in 2024 and spurred hopes among some in his party that he could galvanize voters for an upset in the deeply conservative district. But unofficial returns show Harris significantly reducing his margin of defeat, the latest sign that voters are dissatisfied with Republican leadership and rewarding Democrats at the ballot box.
In the end, voters in the northwest Georgia district stayed true to their reliably red roots. Fuller, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, will serve out the remainder of Greene’s term, which ends in January. He must win a primary and November general election to serve a full two-year term.
After Greene stepped down following a public splitfrom Trump, Georgia’s 14th Congressional District morphed into a critical test of Trump’s power during a midterm election season where he has tried to bolster the Republican majorities in Congress, key to advancing his legislative agenda. Trump voiced his support for Fuller both online and on the ground in Georgia this year, propping him up as a candidate with shared priorities.
When the March special election with 17 candidates advanced to a runoff between Fuller and Harris, Trump urged Georgians to turn out this week.
“Now we have to be careful and finish it off,” he wrote in a March 11 Truth Social post.
In a speech following his win, Fuller said he would have Trump’s “back each and every day” on Capitol Hill. Addressing his constituents, Fuller added, “Like President Trump said, I will never let you down.”
Democrats took solace in unofficial returns showing Harris on track to lose by 12 percentage points compared with his 29 point loss to Greene in 2024. Democrats have consistently overperformed in elections held since Trump returned to the White House, a warning sign to Republicans trying to protect their majorities in Congress in November.
Harris told The Washington Post on Tuesday night that he was proud of his early numbers showing thinning margins. He called his performance a win for Democrats and said the party should use his case as an example of how they can compete in traditionally red districts.
“They need to get behind candidates like me instead of just saying they can’t win,” said Harris, a farmer who cited his town halls and attention to rural voters as campaign assets.
In a statement to The Post, the Fuller campaign said, “there are no moral victories in politics. Losers don’t get to vote in Congress.”
Once a fierce Trump ally and MAGA icon, Greene announced her resignation in November following a spate of public feuds with the president, including over foreign policy, health care subsidies and the release of the Epstein files. Those disputes led Trump to revoke his endorsement of Greene. Greene has become one of Trump’s most vocal critics, calling Tuesday for his removal from office over his warningto Iran that “a whole civilization will die.”
For special elections in Georgia, all candidates run on the same ballot regardless of party. That rule probably helped Harris — who received the largest share of votes with 37 percent — advance to the runoff, because Republican votes were split among GOP candidates. Fuller received 34 percent of the vote, and Colton Moore, a former Georgia state senator who was also a top conservative contender, trailed with 11 percent of the vote.
When Trump endorsed Fuller in February, he wrote that the district attorney was supported by “the most Highly Respected MAGA Warriors in Georgia.”
Meanwhile, Harris hoped to gather support from Democrats, independents and disaffected Republicans for a meaningful showing in the race. The weekend after the March 10 special election, former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg showed up in Rome, Georgia, to campaign for Harris, casting him as a candidate who could bring the concerns of the district’s working class to Washington.
In May, Harris as well as Fuller, Moore and other Republican candidates who ran to replace Greene will appear on Georgia’s primary ballot for a full two-year term representing the 14th District.
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