The national press devoted considerable space and attention to the first-place showing of Democrat Shawn Harris in the initial, all-candidates-regardless-of-party primary for the North Georgia U.S. House seat relinquished by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene earlier this year.
Harris, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general and cattleman, topped the crowded (17 candidates) field with 37% to Republican Clay Fuller's 34%. The two will meet in a runoff next Tuesday.
With days to go before Georgia's 14th District decides on a successor to the congresswoman known universally as "MTG," the Iran-Israel war has flared up as an issue, and some observers are beginning to call the special election a referendum on the war.
"[President Donald Trump] said he would never get us into any more forever wars," Harris declared in a recent debate, "We are currently in a forever war. … We should be trying to pull out of it."
Fuller, a former district attorney from Lookout Mountain and an Air National Guard lieutenant colonel, countered that "Our country is safer because of what the president has done regarding Iran. It is a death cult that cannot be negotiated with."
Can Harris, as many in the press have speculated, turn his first-place showing in the primary and opposition to the war into an upset Tuesday that will surely be national news?
Just about all Peach State Republicans who spoke to Newsmax dismiss the scenario completely.
"The Republican will win in Georgia-14," Phil Kent, a veteran Atlanta public relations man, told us. He noted that Harris' first-place showing was as the lone Democrat against 16 Republicans and, as the Democrat nominee against MTG in '24, he got 35%.
Former Rep. John Linder, R-Ga., a past chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, pointed out that "That is probably the most Republican seat in Georgia. We have a very strong candidate in the runoff. The Democrats had a pretty strong turnout in the first go-round and only one Democrat candidate [Harris], and they got 37.3% of the vote. Fuller will win."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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