Georgia special election to have runoff for Greene’s former House seat

March 11 (UPI) — The House district formerly represented by Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia will see a runoff election in April as the vote count for a Democrat and a Republican is too close.

Republican Clay Fuller, who is endorsed by Trump, and Democrat Shawn Harris, were the top two vote-getters. Harris got 37% of the vote, while Fuller got 34%. But with the Republican vote split, Fuller is the favorite to win the runoff April 7. The district chose Trump in 2024 by 37 percentage points.

Greene, R-Ga., resigned her seat in the 14th district on Jan. 5 after battling with President Donald Trump. The seat has been left vacant since, and voters went to the polls on Tuesday in a special election to choose her replacement.

In Georgia, special elections rules require that all candidates are on the same ballot. This time, there were 22 candidates, 17 of whom were Republicans. But to win, a candidate has to get more than 50% of the vote, which didn’t happen.

Fuller is a district attorney who also ran in 2020 but lost to Greene in the primary. He was a White House fellow in Trump’s first administration and is well-liked by local officials and national Republicans.

Harris is a retired brigadier general and cattle rancher who lost to Greene in 2024. His political ads said that “out of touch politicians” from both parties “don’t understand how difficult things are for hardworking Georgians,” NBC reported.

Harris was endorsed by former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who said, “There’s no such thing as a permanently red state or district.”

Hard-line Republican Colton Moore received about 12% of the vote. In the Georgia General Assembly, Moore was known for clashing with his own party. Trump said he didn’t endorse him because he was too unpredictable.

Moore was arrested in January when he tried to enter the chamber for Gov. Brian Kemp’s State of the State address. The state House speaker had banned him from the chamber.

Though he didn’t get the nod from Trump, Moore told voters that if they support the president, they should elect him.

Greene had been a strong supporter of Trump, but broke with the president over several issues. She became a vocal critic of Republicans who didn’t want to release the Epstein files and said she was against military action overseas.

Before she stepped down, she told NBC’s Meet the Press in January, that “America first” had become something other than what was promised.

“So my understanding of ‘America First’ is strictly for the American people, 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,” she said.