Fuller wins runoff to represent northwest Georgia in Congress but Democrats chalk up gains

Clay Fuller, a Trump-backed Republican, is heading to Washington to replace former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene after winning a runoff election Tuesday against Democrat Shawn Harris, but Fuller will have to immediately defend his new seat. Fuller’s victory in the special election only earns him the right to serve out the rest of Greene’s term. […]

Clay Fuller, a Trump-backed Republican, is heading to Washington to replace former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene after winning a runoff election Tuesday against Democrat Shawn Harris, but Fuller will have to immediately defend his new seat.

Fuller’s victory in the special election only earns him the right to serve out the rest of Greene’s term. Greene stepped down in January after feuding with President Donald Trump over issues like Israel’s actions in Gaza and the files of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In November, Georgians will return to the polls to elect leaders across state and federal government including governor, a U.S. Senate seat and all of its 14 members of Congress – including Fuller. That means Fuller will be back on the ballot next month competing again for the GOP nomination for a full term.

As of late Tuesday, Fuller had about 72,000 votes, good for about 56% of the vote, and Democrat Shawn Harris had about 57,000, or about 44%, according to unofficial results on the secretary of state’s website. Harris appeared to outperform previous Democrats in the deep red district, beating his own showing in 2024 by about 8 percentage points.

Fuller, a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard and former district attorney for the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, attributed his win to President Donald Trump. An endorsement from Trump helped Fuller defeat a crowded field in the Republican primary last month, and the president campaigned for Fuller in Rome in February.

“He made sure that he was the ultimate trump card,” Fuller said. “The Democrat Party poured millions of dollars into this campaign, poured lies into this campaign, but they can’t beat Donald Trump, and they never will, and I will be on Capitol Hill as a warrior to have his back each and every day.”

Fuller’s election will offer some slight breathing room to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. The House currently has 217 Republicans and 214 Democrats.

Georgia Republican Party Chair Josh McKoon called the win evidence that Republican rule in Georgia isn’t going anywhere.

“When Republicans are united, when we share a common purpose, and when we understand what’s at stake, we win,” he said. “We win every single time, and this is the blueprint for what we’re going to need to do in November here and all over Georgia.”

Harris appears to make gains for Democrats 

Harris told supporters that although they did not succeed Tuesday, he will not take a break from campaigning. Harris is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination in this year’s regularly scheduled election.

Harris said that while Fuller will have run in another primary ahead of the November election and will have to fend off other Republicans, he will immediately start campaigning against the Republican nominee, who he said may not necessarily be Fuller.

“Tonight, we start campaigning for November, because, guess what, nobody’s running against me in May,” he said. “Clay is in another fight right now because he’s got six other Republicans that’s running against him. And guess what? Just like we ran Clay to the wire tonight with Donald Trump’s endorsement, we’re gonna beat him the next time.”

Harris painted Tuesday night’s loss as a win, saying that his campaign has built enough momentum to make Republicans nervous. He pointed to $2 million Republicans spent on the campaign against him, despite it being the deepest-red district in the state, and still having such closer-than-expected results.

“They should never have to spend money on a ruby red district,” Harris said. “That tells you that things are changing here in northwest Georgia.”

Democrats were hoping a significant improvement in Harris’ performance in the conservative district would signal a statewide shift in their favor ahead of November’s pivotal midterm elections.

The 14th District is the most Republican-leaning district in the state, according to the Cook Political Report, with Republicans performing 19 points better than in the nation as a whole.

Harris previously ran against Greene in 2024, earning just under 36% of the vote at the time. If Fuller’s margin of victory remains smaller than Greene’s as all the votes come in, Democrats will likely seek to use it as evidence that they are set to overperform across the state in November.

Charlie Bailey, chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said Harris’ vote tally amounted to a “jaw-dropping … overperformance in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s backyard.” Whereas Greene beat Harris by nearly 29 percentage points in 2024, Fuller was leading Harris by 12 points Tuesday.

“Voters are ready for Democratic leadership that fights for them and their families, and that is exactly what the Democratic Party of Georgia will deliver up and down the ballot in November,” Bailey said in a statement Tuesday night. 

Speaking to reporters after his win, Fuller pooh-poohed such a suggestion.

“What you see here is a completely dominating performance,” he said. “Again, the left did their best. They poured in millions upon millions of dollars, and what you’re seeing is the best that they can accomplish. The votes are still going to be pouring in. The margin is going to get wider and wider, and we completely dominated this performance.”

Voter voices from the 14th

Across the district, voters said they didn’t cast their ballots strictly along party lines.

John Hall of Catoosa County, a Vietnam veteran who spent 26 years in the U.S. Army called himself a “Trumper,” but he said Trump’s endorsement was not the main reason he voted for Fuller Tuesday.

“I just want him to be a dedicated Republican,” he said. “He doesn’t have to be a Trumper so much as just represent us properly, just take care of our country like I tried to take care of our country.”

Harris voters largely expressed dissatisfaction with the economy and with Republican leadership from the White House down.

That included some like Catoosa voter Patrick Amos, who said he had never voted for a Democrat in his life until voting for Harris Tuesday. Amos voted for former state Sen. Colton Moore in the primary.

Amos said his switch was largely a reaction to the war in Iran and the high fuel prices that have followed.

“I really loved Trump’s anti-war message that he ran on, and it’s been nothing but war and bombs and high gas prices,” Amos said. “So it’s really I voted for Shawn Harris almost as a protest vote to the current policies of the administration.”

“I voted for cheap gas prices and no war, and I got neither,” he added of the 2024 presidential election.

Rome resident Mary Thomas said that she begrudgingly voted for Fuller after voting for Moore in the primary in March. She said that even though Fuller is endorsed by Trump, she felt that Moore was more representative of the “Make America Great Again” movement. She said she liked former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s style, and that “she was out there, and she knew what she stood for.”

“I hated it, but I think everybody’s weak nowadays. Nobody really wants to go forward and say, this is how the country should be,” Thomas said after saying that she was still voting because she doesn’t “want Democrats to take over.”

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