Republican Clay Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris advanced Tuesday from a crowded field to a runoff in the special election to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia, NBC News projects.
Fuller, a district attorney, benefited from President Donald Trump’s endorsement in the solidly GOP district in the northwest corner of the state. Harris, a retired Army brigadier general and cattle rancher, lost to Greene in the 2024 general election in the 14th District.
Neither candidate was projected to win the majority needed to avoid a runoff in the special election. With 93% of the expected vote in, Harris was at 37%, while Fuller was at 35%. Fuller enters the April 7 runoff as the favorite in a district Trump carried by 37 percentage points in the 2024 presidential race.
Fuller touted Trump’s endorsement on the airwaves and spoke at a recent event with Trump in the district. And he got a boost from Conservatives for American Excellence, a group funded by GOP megadonor Paul Singer, and Club for Growth Action.
A voter NBC News spoke to Tuesday cited Trump’s support as a factor in race. Sarah Umphrey, 77, said she voted for Fuller, adding that Trump’s endorsement was “really important. I like Trump.”
Fuller first ran for Congress in 2020, when he lost a crowded GOP primary in the district to Greene.
Harris raised $4.3 million throughout his campaign and launched ads knocking “out of touch politicians” from both parties who “don’t understand how difficult things are for hardworking Georgians.”
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg endorsed Harris in the race, saying, “There’s no such thing as a permanently red state or district.”
Greene, who won re-election in by 29 points in 2024, resigned in January after she broke with Trump over his handling of the records related to the federal government’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sex offender.
Greene, a onetime vocal ally, also criticized Trump’s focus on foreign affairs, telling NBC News’ “Meet the Press” before she stepped down, “‘America First’ should mean what was promised on the campaign trail in 2024.”
“So my understanding of ‘America First’ is strictly for the American people,” Greene said in January, “not for the big donors that donate to big politicians, not for the special interests that constantly roam the halls in Washington and not foreign countries that demand their priorities put first over Americans.”
Georgia’s rules for special elections dictate that all candidates, regardless of party, appear on the same ballot. With 22 candidates, including 17 Republicans, on the ballot, it was unlikely that any candidate could win more than 50% of the vote and avoid a runoff. Five Republican candidates who appeared on the ballot had since ended their campaigns.
Republican Colton Moore, a former state senator, was in a distant third with 12% of the vote.
Although he did not have Trump’s endorsement, Moore cast himself as the truest supporter of the “Make America Great Again” movement, saying at a recent candidate forum that voters who “100% support President Trump” should back his candidacy.
Moore was arrested this year when he tried to enter Gov. Brian Kemp’s State of the State address after the state House speaker banned him from the chamber. Moore was also removed from the state Senate GOP caucus for chastising fellow Republicans for refusing to impeach Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after she indicted Trump on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election.
