GOP wins with smaller margins in Marjorie Taylor Greene's old GA seat

• Republican Clay Fuller won Georgia's special congressional election against Democrat Shawn Harris.
• Despite the Republican win, Democrats narrowed the previous margins set by Donald Trump and Greene.
• The race was seen as a test of the MAGA movement's strength ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Republican Clay Fuller prevailed over Democrat Shawn Harris in Georgia's special election for Congress on April 7 but a growing blue wave eroded the wide 2024 GOP margins in the district set by President Donald Trump and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The race was called by the Associated Press and NBC News less than 90 minutes after the polls closed.

The contest to replace Greene, who resigned in January after a falling out with Trump, was widely watched for signs of fractures in the Make America Great Again movement and the size of the rising political tide for Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterms. Fuller, a former prosecutor, was endorsed by Trump.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and other Republican leaders cheered the win, which adds a needed member to their slim House majority.

"In Congress, Clay will be a strong ally of President Trump and help House Republicans grow the economy, secure the border and keep Americans safe," Rep. Richard Hudson, R-North Carolina, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement.

A swing away from GOP in a red district

Fuller scored decisive wins in most of the 10 counties in Georgia's 14th Congressional District, which stretches across northwestern Georgia from the Atlanta suburbs to the Tennessee border.

Fuller's lead hovered around 16 percentage points, with 92% of the votes counted. That represents a 21-point swing away from the GOP compared to the last presidential election, when Trump won by roughly 37 percentage points in 2024.

No Democrat has ever received more than 40% of the vote in the district.

Harris, a 60-year-old cattle farmer and retired Army brigadier general, opposed the Iran war, calling it a "war of choice" by the president that needed more oversight from Congress.

"This wasn’t the result we wanted, but the message is clear ‒ people here are ready for leadership that puts them first," Harris said in a post on X shortly after the results.

Democrats nationally were more focused on the margins than the final results coming out of the district, which is one of the more MAGA-friendly areas in the country.

In deeply red Chattooga County, for instance, which is right at the border with Alabama, Fuller won by approximately 40 percentage points, according to preliminary numbers. That is less than Greene had bested Harris two years ago by about 52 percentage points.

Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who came to the district in support of Harris' underdog campaign, said while the Democratic nominee came up short, he generated excitement in a district few thought possible until recently.

"Across the country, in very different corners of America, I see forms of this same energy mounting," Buttigieg, a rumored 2028 presidential contender, said in an April 7 post on X. "If we keep working hard, unbelievable results will be possible in November."