ROME, GA — Republican congressional candidate Clay Fuller says that Tuesday’s special election runoff in Georgia is “extremely crucial.”
Fuller is facing off against Democrat Shawn Harris in the race to fill the seat in Georgia’s solidly red 14th Congressional District — in the northwest part of the state — left vacant when MAGA firebrand Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stepped down at the beginning of January. Greene quit Congress with a year left in her term, after a bitter falling out with President Donald Trump.
The special election, held on the same day as a state Supreme Court contest in battleground Wisconsin, comes as Republicans cling to a razor-thin 218–214 majority in the House. The GOP cannot afford any surprises or allow the Democrats to pull an upset in the special election, in a district Trump carried by a whopping 37 points in his 2024 presidential victory.
“We need the reinforcements,” Fuller, a local district attorney and a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard who’s served in the Air Force since 2009, emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview on the eve of the runoff election, as he pointed to the GOP’s fragile majority. “I think the voters in Georgia 14 understand that, and they’re looking forward to sending a MAGA America first fighter up on Capitol Hill to support that agenda.”
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Asked if he was concerned that MAGA supporters would sit out what may be a low turnout election since the president is not on the ballot, Fuller said voters “would crawl through glass to make sure they have a representative up there that fight for them and fight for President Trump, and that’s why we’re going to have the votes pouring out on April 7.”
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Harris, a cattle farmer who spent four decades in the military and retired as an Army brigadier general, needs the support of crossover Republicans in order to pull off an upset.
“I am a Democrat, but I’m not tied to the party,” Harris highlighted as he spoke with Fox News Digital. And Harris argued, “My opponent, Clay, cannot say that. He actually sold his soul to President Trump.”
Harris, pointing to surging gas prices fueled by Trump’s military attack on Iran, said when voters “go to the polls, they will have to stop at the pump, and that’ll be the last thing they think about before they go and vote. And they’re going to say, ‘You know what, Shawn Harris is the only one that’s talking about bringing down costs, Shawn Harris is the only one saying, ‘I’m going to stand up for the people here in Northwest Georgia, period.’”
“We will win this war militarily. However, if we don’t watch it and be clear with the American people, based on these gas prices and diesel prices, we could actually lose this war politically.”
Harris said he “will support President Trump on things like the…southern border.” But he added “when it comes to things like…a forever war. Send me. I will push back.”
Fuller said that “the voters in Georgia-14 support the president in this endeavor. They understand that the Iranian regime was a long term threat to our national security…they understand that President Trump is making the world safer, and they understand that there may be short term pain at the gas pump, and they’ll expect those prices to drop as soon as this conflict is over.”
Harris grabbed 37% of the vote, with Fuller at 35% amid a field of 17 candidates, including 12 Republicans, in the first round of voting in early March. Since no candidate topped 50%, Harris and Fuller advanced to Tuesday’s runoff.
The congressional seat — which stretches from Atlanta’s outer suburbs to the state’s northwest borders with Alabama and Tennessee — was left vacant when Greene quit Congress with a year left in her term, after a very public falling out with Trump mostly over her push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
While Greene remains popular among Republicans in the district, Fuller said the voters he’s talked with on the campaign trail “are focused on the fights of the future, not anything that had happened in the past.”
Asked if he’s talked with Greene, Fuller said he “reached out to Rep. Greene, had conversations with her and got advice on the district, and I’ll keep those conversations confidential.”
Harris, who as a first-time candidate lost to Greene by nearly 29 points in her 2024 re-election, emphasized that “I’m not running against Marjorie Taylor Greene anymore,” and that his name “carries more weight than any other name in this district.”
If Harris loses but holds Fuller’s margin to the mid-teens or less, national Democrats will argue the election is the latest in nearly 15 months since Trump returned to the White House in which they overperformed.
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The ballot box brawl in Northwest Georgia isn’t the only electoral showdown on Tuesday. There’s also a state Supreme Court election in battleground Wisconsin.
While officially a non-partisan contest, state Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin have become extremely partisan in recent years.
With the court’s majority on the line in last year’s contest, outside money poured in and out-of-state door knockers blanketed Wisconsin. One of the biggest spenders was Trump ally Elon Musk, who headlined a rally days before the election and donned a cheesehead hat worn by fans of the Green Bay Packers.
Democrats won that election by a larger-than-expected margin and currently hold a 4-3 majority on Wisconsin’s highest court.
With a conservative justice retiring, the majority isn’t at stake in this year’s election, although if state Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, a former democratic state representative, wins, liberals would expand their majority on the high court to 5-2.
If Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, a conservative, wins or keeps the margins close, the GOP may claim a moral victory.