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Georgia holds run-off election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene

Kayla Epstein
Reuters A composite image of Republican Clay Fuller, right, wearing a white t-shirt that says "Freedom"; and Democrat Shawn Harris, left, who is wearing a dark t-shirt with his campaign logo on the front.Reuters
Democrat Shawn Harris, left, and Republican Clay Fuller, right, are competing to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress.

Georgia holds a runoff election on Tuesday to replace former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, which could see the staunch conservative district remain in Republican hands or flip in a surprise upset by a Democrat.

Greene abruptly resigned from the US Congress in January after a split with President Donald Trump, leaving behind thousands of frustrated constituents.

Voters will choose between Republican Clay Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris.

Leadership in the US House of Representatives will closely watch the outcome, as Republicans have a razor-thin governing majority and cannot afford to lose many seats.

The winner will serve out the rest of Greene's term, which ends in January 2027.

He won't have time to rest, however: In order to hold the seat in Congress beyond next January, the winner will have to immediately start running again in the midterm elections this November. It's possible both candidates face off again.

A special election was held on 10 March where Harris performed marginally better than Fuller, in part because of a lack of other serious Democratic contenders. Due to the crowded field, no single candidate won a majority, requiring Tuesday's run off election.

Fuller, a former district attorney whose endorsement by Trump put him ahead of the Republican field, has the advantage of running in a conservative district.

Republican voters told the BBC last month that they wanted a candidate willing to support Trump's agenda after the dramatics of the president's rupture with Greene.

Fuller's platform closely aligns with Trump's, including curbing illegal immigration and enacting mass deportations.

"They support President Trump," Fuller said of his voters in March, after he advanced to the run-off.

"They know they want an America first fighter on Capitol Hill, fighting for his policies that are going to make a difference," he added.

Georgia's 14th congressional district encompasses the northwest part of the state, from the northwest Atlanta suburbs all the way up to the Tennessee border. The mostly-rural district is dominated by Republicans, but has pockets of Democratic voters in the areas closer to Atlanta and around the city of Rome.

Harris has hoped that the unpredictable dynamics of this run-off – which occurs outside a typical election cycle when voter turnout may be low – could allow him to eke out enough Democratic and Independent votes to pull off a surprise victory. The retired brigadier general has raised millions and canvassed aggressively in the district.

Watch: Clay Fuller and Shawn Harris speak about projected Georgia election runoff

National Democrats have eyed the seat as a potential-pick up, and former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg held a town hall with Harris in March.

"Everybody who voted for any other candidate [...] I want to talk to every last one of them, and say: 'Give me a chance,'" Harris told the BBC after he advanced in the run-off.

Trump has weighed in on the race repeatedly, hoping to keep it in Republican hands. His party has an extremely narrow majority in the US House of Representatives; at the moment, just a couple of Republican defections could derail a vote.

Republicans hold 217 seats and Democrats have 214. One Independent congress member caucuses with the Republicans, and there are three vacancies in the process of being filled.

"Clay Fuller is going to be a fantastic Congressman in representing the Great State of Georgia," Trump wrote on Truth Social after Fuller advanced to the run-off. "Now we have to be careful and finish it off. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!"