Republican Clay Fuller was projected to have won Georgia’s runoff election to replace former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a once-staunch ally of Donald Trump who resigned earlier this year after breaking with the president.
Fuller won the election to replace her on Tuesday, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. He is a Trump-endorsed candidate who won against Democrat Shawn Harris, and whose victory keeps the strongly conservative district in Republican hands.
The win shores up the party’s razor-thin 217-214 majority in the House of Representatives.
Fuller, a lieutenant colonel in the Georgia Air National Guard, will serve out the rest of Greene’s term, which ends next January.
He said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday night that Trump’s endorsement was “the key factor in us winning”.
“He was the difference-maker,” Fuller said. “He made all the difference in the world. It was the honour of my lifetime to be able to get his endorsement.”
A special election was held on 10 March where Harris performed marginally better than Fuller, in part because a crowded Republican field split the vote. No single candidate won a majority that night, requiring Tuesday’s run off election.
In order to hold the seat in Congress beyond next January, Fuller will have to immediately start campaiging again, this time for the midterm elections this November. It’s possible he will face off with Harris again.
Harris indicated on social media that he plans to run.
“This wasn’t the result we wanted, but the message is clear — people here are ready for leadership that puts them first,” he said. “The fight continues. On to November!”
Fuller, who was a White House fellow during Trump’s first term, is closely aligned with the president’s agenda, particularly on curbing illegal immigration and enacting mass deportations.
He rose to the top of a crowded Republican primary field in large part due to Trump’s endorsement. Washington closely followed the race from afar for indications of Trump’s sway with his base ahead of the midterm elections.
“In general, part of President Trump’s strategy in endorsing Fuller was this recognition that the most red meat, MAGA-affiliated candidate in this particular instance, might be off-putting to voters in the middle,” said Andra Gillespie, a professor of political science at Emory University. “This was an attempt to not lose those voters.”
The president doubled down on his support for Fuller on Monday night, writing on social media ahead of election day: “I am asking all Republicans, America First Patriots, and MAGA Warriors, to please GET OUT AND VOTE for a fantastic Candidate, Clay Fuller, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”
Harris had bet on the unpredictable dynamics of the run-off – which occurs outside a typical election cycle when voter turnout may be low – hoping it would allow him to bring out enough Democratic and Independent voters to pull off a surprise victory.
The Democratic Party had 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.
But several things had to go right for Harris – and wrong for Fuller – for the Democrat to win this race, said Andra Gillespie, a professor of political science at Emory University.
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.
Trump had repeatedly chimed in on the race, with hopes to keep it in Republican hands. The party has a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, meaning even just a few Republican defections could derail a vote.
By BBC News
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