GOP looks to move on from Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia

WASHINGTON — In the two months since former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned from her seat in Congress, Georgia Republicans have been going out of their way to minimize her presence in the race to replace her.

Seventeen candidates, including a dozen Republicans, are set to face off March 10 in a special election for the 14th District in Georgia’s northwest corner, making a runoff likely. The winner will serve out the remainder of Greene’s term. The seat, heavily favored toward Republicans, is pivotal to buffering the GOP’s razor-thin majority —where just a single defection can sink legislation in the House.

Local prosecutor Clay Fuller, former state legislator Colton Moore and ex-Greene staffer Jim Tully are among the more prominent GOP contenders vying to replace Greene. And while vastly outnumbered in the deep-red district, there are several Democrats in the race, including Army veteran Shawn Harris, who lost to Greene in 2024.

A onetime MAGA stalwart who was elected in 2020, Greene resigned from Congress in January, following a dramatic split with President Donald Trump. For most of her tenure, she was a conservative firebrand and one of Trump’s fiercest defenders in Congress.

But Greene publicly broke with the president in 2025 over the release of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as over the direction of his “America First” agenda and what she saw as his undue focus on foreign policy.

“This is a messy divorce and people don’t want to take sides,” Carl Cavalli, a political science professor at the University of Northern Georgia, said in an interview. “You have all of these [candidates] who would have professed their undying loyalty to both Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene at the same time.

“Well, when those two break up, what do you do? Basically, you try to avoid the situation,” he added.

The result has been a race in which Republicans have often expressed frustration or indifference toward Greene. Those who offered up muted praise were careful to avoid taking sides in Greene’s public fight with Trump or repeating her criticisms.

“I support what she did for this district, up until her spat with Trump,” said Beau Brown, a risk management consultant who is one of 12 Republicans in the all-party special election. “Obviously, you know, she has decided to go a different direction in her political career.”

The 14th District encompasses all or part of 10 counties stretching from the northernmost Atlanta suburbs to the northwest corner of the state, bordering Tennessee and Alabama. If no candidate garners more than 50% of the vote, the race will head to an April 7 runoff between the top two vote-getters.

Trump talk

With Greene on the sidelines, the two best-known GOP candidates in the race have chosen to compete over their MAGA bona fides and frame the contest over who will more fiercely defend Trump in Congress.

The race will test the power of the president’s endorsement. Trump has thrown his political weight behind Fuller, a mild-mannered former district attorney who was a White House fellow during Trump’s first administration. Fuller has emphatically embraced Trump’s support.

“The America First agenda is the people’s agenda, and I am ready to be the warrior that takes this movement and makes it permanent,” he told an audience who had gathered to hear Trump speak during a campaign stop in Rome, Ga., last month.

But that hasn’t stopped Moore, a former state senator well known in the district, from pitching himself as the true MAGA candidate. His campaign slogan — “God. Guns. Trump.” — prominently features Moore’s support for the president.

In an interview, Moore emphasized his willingness to go to the mat for Trump, even when it meant angering other Republicans. He pointed to his efforts as a state representative to push Gov. Brian Kemp not to certify the state’s 2020 presidential election results.

When he was a state senator, Moore also called for an investigation of Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis over her probe of Trump and others for allegedly attempting to overturn the state’s election results. That caused a fissure between Moore and GOP lawmakers in 2023 and prompted his suspension from the state Senate Republican caucus.

Politicians outside Georgia have been wary of weighing in on the race with a few exceptions. Moore has won the support of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, while Harris has picked up the endorsement of former Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Greene has made good on her word to keep mum during the race, and Moore, like many candidates, has signaled he would like to move on.

“She’s history. She’s gone!” said Moore. “I don’t talk about her unless she’s brought up.”

Star Black, a Republican who entered the primary last summer expecting to face off against Greene, said people grew tired of her combativeness.

“The one thing I will give her credit for is she was great about calling things out that were not working,” said Black, who is banking on her 28-year tenure at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to win over voters who want a detail-oriented candidate with government experience.

Even those who worked closely with Greene have kept their distance.

Jim Tully, a former Greene staffer and former chair of the district’s Republican committee, makes no mention of Greene by name on his campaign website. And when pressed about a possible endorsement from his former boss, Tully told Atlanta News First: “No. This is about Jim’s involvement with the people of the 14th district.”

For Meg Strickland, a former Hill staffer and one of several moderate conservatives in the race, Greene’s early departure from Congress felt like a betrayal to voters.

“I don’t think that I’ve seen anger but I think that I have seen hurt from people,” she said of the fallout between Greene and Trump. “A good half of people really trusted her and really thought that she cared, and then she turned her back. … She should have finished her term.”

Campaign coffers

Trump-endorsed Fuller enters the contest’s home stretch with a significant money advantage. He has raised about $1 million to date, with just over $238,000 cash on hand as of Feb. 18. His fundraising total includes a $300,000 loan to his own campaign.

Of the Republicans in the race, Fuller has raised the most, with the exception of conservative businessman Brian Stover, who raised about $1.1 million but loaned his own campaign more than $723,000.

Moore managed to take in less than half of Fuller’s amount, raising about $417,000 to date, with just over $70,000 cash on hand through Feb. 18.

But it’s a Democrat who has yielded the biggest numbers: Harris netted roughly $4.3 million to date, with close to $290,000 in his campaign coffers as of Feb. 18.

But even that is unlikely to be enough to capture a district where the GOP has a steep political advantage. Trump carried the district by 37 points in 2024, according to Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.

“This is the one of the most heavily lopsided Republican districts in the entire state and in the nation for that matter,” said Cavalli.