ROME, Ga. — When President Donald Trump endorsed Clay Fuller for Congress more than a month ago, the move was supposed to winnow a crowded Republican field in the race to replace retired Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Instead, it’s produced a test case for the durability of Trump’s endorsement power in Republican primaries.
As voters head to the polls in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District on Tuesday, 17 candidates remain in the special election — including a dozen Republicans who declined to step aside despite the president’s public backing of Fuller, a state district attorney. The crowded field reflects a familiar dynamic in Georgia, where Trump remains the state’s most popular Republican but his endorsements in downballot races have faltered. Voters here rejected his endorsed candidates in the 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary and the general elections for U.S. Senate in 2020 and 2022, even as Trump carried the state in 2024.
The Republican candidates who stayed in the race are betting that pattern holds.
“Everybody’s talking about Donald Trump. Let me remind you that Donald Trump doesn’t live in this district. He doesn’t choose who our representative is,” Jim Tully, a longtime state party official and former staffer for Greene now seeking to replace her, said in a recent video. “He’s the president of the United States. We’ve already elected him. This seat belongs to the people of the 14th District. It’s their choice. It’s their vote.”
Other candidates in the race have asserted that Trump endorsed the wrong person.
Among them is Colton Moore, a former state legislator who operates in the image of an early Greene: a right-wing firebrand comfortable with spreading controversial falsehoods, engaging in public spats with opponents, including journalists, and embracing “tough fights” with members of his own party. While Trump’s endorsement of Fuller disappointed him, Moore has publicly brushed it off.
“President Trump and I have actually spoken to one another more since he’s endorsed my opponent than even before,” Moore said in a recent interview. “No one’s been a better defender of President Trump in Georgia.”
Recent straw polls suggest Moore’s confidence may be justified. A small straw poll last week by Republicans in Floyd County, which includes Rome, had Moore narrowly ahead of Fuller. A larger straw poll a month earlier at a Northwest Georgia Republican candidate forum had Moore ahead by an even larger margin.
Moore has taken these tea leaves as proof that he can put forth a strong showing during the special election, despite losing out on Trump’s endorsement.
Trump, as he often says, likes to pick winners. And with House Republicans managing a razor-thin majority, the “winner” in this race needs to be someone willing to work with Speaker Mike Johnson.
Moore, for all his Trump loyalty, has shown little interest in institutional cooperation. He was banned from the Georgia House chamber in 2024 after stoking a fight with late House Speaker David Ralston that continued even after his death. His penchant for intraparty fighting had resulted in Moore getting the boot from the Georgia Senate Republican Caucus months earlier, with leadership accusing him of “causing unnecessary tension and hostility, while putting his Caucus colleagues and their families at risk of personal harm.”
Trump’s desire to win — and to ensure that Greene’s replacement is docile in the face of leadership’s needs — was front and center in his visit to Rome in February, during which he offered Fuller speaking time during his remarks. “I think he’s going to be just a total winner, and it’s what we want,” Trump said. “You have my total and complete endorsement.”
But the lack of unity behind Fuller was apparent even as Trump toured local businesses. While he was at the Varsity, a Georgia staple, a small crowd gathered outside holding signs supporting Moore.
“Why is [Trump] coming to the district? Because he endorsed my opponent two weeks ago, and we’re still ahead of him in every single poll,” Moore said in a radio interview. “So he’s got to come down here and save face.”
An opening for Democrats?
In the nonpartisan special election, the top two vote-getters advance to an April 7 runoff unless one candidate exceeds 50% — an unlikely scenario given the crowded field. And the Republican fracturing has given Democrat Shawn Harris an easier path to one of the top two slots.
Harris, a Black cattle producer and retired Army general, pulled in 35% of the vote during his unsuccessful run against Greene in 2024. Harris himself is hopeful that the circumstances around the special election, like its timing, could aid him in scoring an upset.
“Democrats are very excited. They want to make history and this is their big opportunity,” Harris told MS NOW on Tuesday, noting that a victory would make him the first Democrat to represent the district since it was formed in 2010. “I’m confident today that they’re going to come out and vote.”
The Democratic farmer says Trump and national Republicans are threatened by his ability to build a working-class coalition, particularly as affordability remains a top concern. “The biggest issue is still the overall economy. Things cost way too much,” Harris said. “Now we’re in the middle of a war. Gas prices have already popped out the roof.” “The other piece that plays into that is now, as you know, the insurance is out the roof, so people are struggling, trying to figure out how they pay for the insurance, how they pay for grocery bills,” Harris added. Democrats have invested heavily in the race despite the district’s overwhelmingly Republican lean, with Harris spending more than $4 million over the course of his campaign — more than quadruple the amount spent by any Republican opponent, according to Federal Election Commission filings. The party sees value in forcing Republicans to defend even their safest seats, and Harris’ strong 2024 showing suggested he could at least make them work for it. “Donald Trump and his team look at the same stuff that we look at. It’s not fairy dust, it’s not makeup. It’s the reality that, yes, this is a real candidate — Shawn Harris got what it takes to win this thing,” Harris said. “President Trump doesn’t realize he’s not as strong as he used to be.” The special election will determine who finishes Greene’s term, but the winner will face another primary within weeks for a full two-year term. Many of the same candidates are expected to compete again — meaning Tuesday’s vote may settle nothing at all. Moore’s path to victory relies on grassroots Republicans who remember him as the hard-line loyalist who amplified Trump’s disproven 2020 election conspiracy theories at every turn. Moore was among the earliest elected officials in Georgia to promote Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the state’s election results were rigged. He pushed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to decertify Joe Biden’s victory and launched an effort to weaken the pair’s authority on elections after they refused. Kemp called Moore’s effort at the time “political theater.” Three years later, when Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted Trump for his effort to overturn the 2020 election results, Moore, a state senator at the time, waited only three days before calling for a special session in the state legislature to probe her actions, calling for the legislature to “strip all funding and, if appropriate, impeach Fani Willis.” The vast majority of his Republican colleagues felt a special session would be too costly and unlikely to succeed. Moore derided them as “RINOs” — Republicans in Name Only. He touts the episode on his campaign website. That record offers insight into why Trump — months after his relationship with Greene collapsed — may have hesitated to back Moore despite his loyalty, opting instead for Fuller, a veteran, attorney and former Trump White House fellow who seems more likely to work within Johnson’s narrow majority. Whether Trump’s calculation proves correct will become clear Tuesday. But in Georgia’s most heavily Republican district, his endorsement has done something unusual: It hasn’t deterred a single serious challenger from staying in the race.
Nnamdi Egwuonwu is a reporter for MS NOW. Recommended
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