By Nathan Layne
April 7 (Reuters) – Polls closed on Tuesday in northwest Georgia where voters cast ballots in a congressional race between a moderate Democrat and a Republican backed by President Donald Trump, in a test of Trump’s sway over his base and a possible barometer for the November midterms.
The two-way race is to fill a U.S. House of Representatives seat vacated in January when conservative Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned after a public break with Trump, exposing divisions within his Make America Great Again movement.
The contest pitted Clay Fuller, a Trump-endorsed former district attorney and U.S. Air National Guard veteran, against Shawn Harris, a moderate Democrat who has been trying to win over disaffected Trump voters in one of the state’s most conservative districts. Fuller was favored.
A Fuller win would give House Speaker Mike Johnson a little more room to maneuver, as the chamber currently is nearly evenly divided with 217 Republicans, 214 Democrats, one independent and three vacancies.
The runoff was triggered after no candidates secured an outright majority in a March 10 special election, with Harris winning 37.3% of the vote and Fuller topping a crowded Republican field of a dozen contenders with 34.9%.
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 if Harris loses, his margin of defeat 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, said he expected Fuller to come out on top, citing 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, is whether Harris can 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. Greene won the seat in 2020 and quickly became one of MAGA’s most outspoken national figures.
HARRIS SEEKS 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.
The winner of the runoff 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 Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Michael Learmonth and Cynthia Osterman)
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