- Georgia's special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene tests President Donald Trump's influence.
- Clay Fuller and Colton Moore vie for Trump's base in Georgia's 14th District.
- A runoff on April 7 is expected due to the crowded candidate field.
DALTON, Ga. — Georgia polls closed in Tuesday's race to choose the successor to Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene in a U.S. House of Representatives special election seen as a test of President Donald Trump's sway in the state's most conservative district.
Trump, a Republican, endorsed Clay Fuller, a former district attorney for four northwest Georgia counties, but Colton Moore, a former state senator who calls himself "Trump's #1 Defender," made a play for the president's activist base.
Polling stations shut at 7 p.m. ET, with results expected in the following hours.
With 17 candidates in the race, no one is expected to win a majority, setting up an April 7 runoff between the top two finishers. That could include Shawn Harris, a Democratic retired U.S. Army general who has sought to peel off disillusioned Trump voters as his party works to overturn Republicans' slim House majority in November's midterm elections.
The race has drawn outsized national attention because it offers an early measure of Trump's grip on his base in an area that has been a stronghold of his Make America Great Again movement. A strong showing by Fuller would underscore Trump's continued influence, while a weaker performance could point to a loosening of his grip on MAGA.
Mark Nelson, 63, a retired commercial airline pilot and Republican, said he was debating between Fuller and Moore — both of whom he sees as MAGA loyalists — as he walked into a polling place in Dalton, a city of about 35,000, earlier on Tuesday.
"We need someone who's as pro-Trump as Marjorie used to be," he said, referring to Greene, who resigned in January following an acrimonious split with the president.
Nelson said that neither the war in Iran nor rising gasoline prices, which have jumped in Georgia by 48 cents a gallon since the conflict started, were affecting his decision because he believed that Trump "will fix everything real soon."
Art Carlson, a 96-year-old lifelong Republican, said he passed on the dozen Republicans in the race and voted for Jim Davis, one of three Democratic candidates on the ballot, blaming Trump for the Iran conflict and the jump in gas prices.
"The reason I'm here today is to counter anyone who's going to be like Trump or Marjorie Taylor what's-her-name," he told Reuters on Tuesday.
Race seen headed to a runoff due to crowded field
Georgia's 14th Congressional District, a mostly blue-collar corridor from Atlanta's exurbs up to the Tennessee border, vaulted into the national spotlight after Greene swept to victory in 2020 and quickly became one of MAGA's most outspoken national figures.
Greene had a public falling out with Trump late in 2025 after she went against his wishes by pushing for the release of investigative files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, said the election was a test case to see "how powerful Trump's hold over the party is in that particular district."
Swint said the most likely outcome was Harris finishing first without a majority, and the Republican candidates splitting that party's vote, leaving either Fuller or Moore to claim the second runoff spot. Swint added that Harris would be almost certain to lose to the Republican in the runoff, given the district's conservative leanings.
At a polling location in Lookout Mountain, a small city of about 1,600 people, Eddie Gwaltney, 74, said Harris had his vote because it was "hard to argue with a retired general and cattle farmer."
"Any chance we have to put another Democrat in the House of Representatives is good news for me," Gwaltney said.
Moore says district knows him as staunch Trump defender
In an interview on Tuesday, Moore said he remained confident he could win without Trump's endorsement. He cited his relentless efforts to promote Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and his attacks on Trump's perceived political enemies, believing that such loyalty would garner support among the MAGA faithful.
"The district recognizes me as Trump's No. 1 defender," Moore said, adding that his campaign's volunteers knocked on 1,700 doors on Saturday. "You know, quite frankly, I think the president has got some bad advisers to endorse my opponent."
Moore said he expected Harris and either himself or Fuller to advance to a runoff.
Harris said frustration over the economy and Trump's decision to attack Iran were driving voters to support him.
"He got us into the middle of a war. And everything I talk about is kitchen-table issues," he told Reuters. "We are either going to win it outright, or we're going to go into a runoff."
The winner of the special election will serve through the end of 2026 but must immediately campaign for the full two-year term starting January 2027, beginning with a May primary that could pit many of the same contenders against each other again.
Contributing: Jonathan Allen
