Trump's candidate's victory: Clay Fuller wins Georgia special election to fill seat vacated by Marjorie Taylor Greene

Republican prosecutor Clay Fuller won the special election to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in the House of Representatives after defeating Democrat Shawn Harris to fill the vacant seat in Georgia's heavily Republican 14th congressional district. Fuller, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, thus avoids what would have represented a monumental upset and major win for Democrats, who recorded a more notable turnout than expected, despite the district having been historically conservative.

Harris, who previously ran unsuccessfully against Greene in 2024, led the initial primary with 37 percent of the vote, while Fuller followed closely with 35 percent. Neither Fuller nor the Democratic candidate achieved a majority in the initial round of voting in March due to a crowded primary field, forcing a runoff that ultimately decided the race.

Republicans maintain their lead

The special election took place as Republicans held a narrow 218-214 lead in the House of Representatives. With such a slim margin, the Republican Party faced intense pressure to prevent the Democrats from pulling off an upset in Northwest Georgia's 14th district, an area that President Trump won resoundingly by 37 points in the 2024 election. Different analysts have explained that a Harris victory would have been worrisome enough to make a possible conservative debacle in the midterm elections, which will take place in November, increasingly plausible.

The seat became vacant when the embattled Rep. Greene decided to step aside in early January, in what represented the latest episode in a surprisingly bitter split with Trump. While the Republican was in recent years one of the leading figures of the MAGA movement and one of the most loyal congresswomen to Trump, different issues began to mark a distancing that, while at first did not seem salient, ended up blowing up in the most abrupt way after strong statements by the Republican and publications of the president on Truth Social in which he lambasted Greene.