JUST IN: Trump-Backed Candidate Cruises In Special Election For MTG’s Former District

Trump-backed Republican candidate Clayton Fuller soundly defeated a crowded GOP field to advance to a runoff against Democrat challenger Shawn Harris in  Georgia’s 14th Congressional District on Tuesday evening. The election is being held to fill the seat formerly held by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who resigned from Congress earlier this year after a falling out with President Trump.

With no candidate achieving a majority of the votes, the two will compete in a runoff election scheduled for April 7. Under Georgia election law, a runoff is required if neither of the top two finishers in the initial primary contest receives more than 50 percent of the vote.

Georgia’s 14th Congressional District encompasses swaths of the state’s northwest, including a mix of rural and suburban areas such as Rome, Dalton, and parts of the Chattanooga metropolitan area extending toward Atlanta’s outer suburbs. The district became vacant on January 5, when Greene formally resigned.

According to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, the district has a rating of R+19, indicating a strong Republican lean.

With roughly 73 percent reporting as of this writing, Fuller garnered approximately 34.7% of the vote in the special election. He currently serves as the district attorney for the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, a position he has held since 2020.

He is also an officer in the Air National Guard and previously ran for the same congressional seat in 2020, when he finished fourth in the Republican primary.

Fuller speaks at a campaign rally alongside President Trump on February 19

Fuller received Trump’s endorsement on February 4, with the president describing him as a supporter of policies emphasizing military strength and economic priorities in a Truth Social post.

The special election featured a crowded field, with roughly a dozen Republican candidates competing alongside Democrats, a Libertarian, and an independent. Initially, 17 Republicans qualified, though some withdrew before the vote, leaving about 12 active GOP contenders.

Among the top Republican performers outside of Fuller were Colton Moore, a former state senator who received about 11.7 percent of the vote; Brian Stover, who earned around 5.0 percent; and Tom Gray, who garnered approximately 2.9 percent of the vote.

On the Democrat side, Shawn Harris ran far ahead of any challenger with roughly 38 percent of the vote as of this report. Harris is a retired U.S. Army Brigadier General with 40 years of military service, including combat roles in Afghanistan. He previously ran as the Democrat nominee for the seat in 2024.

The runoff on April 7 will determine the winner, who will serve the remainder of the term until the regularly scheduled election in November. Georgia’s runoff system, applied here in a nonpartisan special election format where all candidates appear on a single ballot, ensures a majority winner and is set to occur 28 days after the initial vote as mandated by state law.

Fuller is widely projected to win the runoff given the district’s partisan lean.

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