Christopher Darden is a Goodwill warehouse technician who said he voted for Donald Trump in 2024 because he thought the president would send voters another stimulus check. More than a year after Trump returned to office, the Rome resident said his health insurance is more expensive, along with gas prices and his overall cost of living — and no third Trump stimulus check has arrived.
He now says his support for Trump was “a mistake.”
Congressional candidate Shawn Harris’ chances of defeating Trump-endorsed prosecutor Clay Fuller in former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s MAGA stronghold next week may hinge on the concerns of voters like Darden.
“He made all these promises and ain’t nothin’ happened,” Darden said of Trump on Friday during an interview outside his home.
Darden said he didn’t vote in the March 10 special election for the U.S. House District 14 seat, but he now plans to support Harris in the runoff race because Fuller is backed by Trump.
“He’s an advocate of Trump. Ain’t no way,” Darden said of Fuller. “He’s gonna basically be on the same thing that Trump’s on. That’s a puppet.”
Harris is the Democratic military veteran who lost to Greene by a landslide in 2024 in the same dark red, conservative northwest Georgia district.
Earlier this month, he secured the most votes in a crowded field of mostly GOP contenders vying to replace Greene. The Tuskegee grad received more than 37% of votes cast on March 10. Fuller came in second with more than 35% of the vote. Fellow Republican Colton Moore was a distant third with just 12%.
Harris spent Friday afternoon knocking on doors in South Rome, a largely Black neighborhood that could play a significant role in his bid to flip the district on April 7. Harris acknowledged during a recent phone interview that Georgia’s runoff system was created specifically to keep Black candidates like him from winning races in which white voters are split between choices.
He told Capital B Atlanta that the race is now about which candidate can get their base of voters more motivated to cast ballots. He said Republicans in the district aren’t as hyped to vote for Trump’s handpicked candidate as Democrats are to send an anti-Trump message to Washington.
“My opponent, Clay Fuller, has sold his soul to Donald Trump,” Harris said. “Because he sold his soul to Donald Trump, he’s weak. He’s Mr. Irrelevant.”
Fuller, a Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit district attorney who received Trump’s endorsement in February, has voiced support for the president’s tariffs policies, referring to them as an “effective tool” for protecting local farmers from foreign imports.
Harris said Trump’s tariffs have been harmful to profits of farmers like him in District 14.
Twenty-seven Georgia farmers filed for bankruptcy in 2025, up 145% from the previous year, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, an agricultural advocacy group. The right-leaning Farm Bureau of Georgia has said the tariffs “pose a threat to many Georgia farmers.”
“Do you want to send somebody to D.C. that can’t even tell you what a farmer is and what we do?” Harris said. “I’m not asking you to become a Democrat, but I am saying to you, vote your interest.”
Fuller did not respond to Capital B Atlanta’s emailed requests for comment.
At a March 23 debate, Fuller criticized his rival for backing Kamala Harris in 2024, and referred to him as a “radical leftist” who wants to “take your guns.” He also signaled a desire to unite Republicans in his district behind him by pointing out he received 58% of GOP votes cast during the March 10 special election.
“We need an America First fighter to stand strong for Northwest Georgia,” Fuller said. “Now is the time for us to come together and defeat the radical left.”
Some residents in South Rome told Capital B Atlanta they’re backing Harris on April 7 because he’s speaking directly to them. One of them was Phoebe Johnson, 69, a retired nurse who said she’s tired of paying more for groceries, especially bacon. She said she supports Harris because he’s been active in the community.
“This is the third time that I’ve seen him walking around knocking on doors, so he’s really putting out the effort, and I just think he’s gonna get it. I think he’s gonna win,” she said.
Her neighbor, Odell Battle, is concerned about gentrification, higher-paying jobs, and health care access. Battle moved to Rome from North Carolina in 1971. He said what was once a city experiencing white flight due to an influx of Black transplants is now going through the opposite due to a rising cost of living. He wants Harris to help bring better-paying jobs and to retrain local residents to secure them.
“It’s all about economics,” Battle said. “If there’s no economics, if there are no jobs and [an] educated level of people — Black, white, Hispanic or whatever — that have the kind of jobs that can afford [more expensive] housing, they’re left out of that.”
Early voting in the runoff began Monday. The winner on April 7 will serve out the remainder of Greene’s term, which ends in January 2027, and will be up for reelection this November. The result could help tip the scales in a House of Representatives with 218 Republicans and 214 Democrats.
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