America's Talking - GOP majority narrows in U.S. House with exit of Georgia Rep.

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

(The Center Square) – Former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's congressional seat will be empty at least two months, likely three, as a special election already drawing 24 candidates will not take place until March 10. If a runoff is needed, April 7 would be the earliest the seat could be decided, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Tuesday. Georgia law requires winning candidates to receive 50% of the vote plus one. The timing is pivotal for many reasons, including potential government shutdowns. Republicans have a 218-213 advantage with four vacancies in the U.S. House of Representatives, the trend has been four to five continuing resolutions per year. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Good afternoon and welcome to America's Talking. My name is Morgan Sweeney and I am a DC-based reporter with the Center Square. I am talking with associate editor Kim Jarrett today. Kim reports on Georgia and Tennessee. So Monday was an interesting day for Congress. Unfortunately, a long time California congressman suddenly passed away unexpectedly. He was very conservative. Trump said, on Monday that he voted with him 100% of the time. I don't know if that was an exaggeration, but we do know that he was very conservative. So he passed away, and it was also Marjorie Taylor Green's last day after she had announced that she would be resigning. So what can you tell us about that, Kim? We were following her on her last day. She announced her resignation on a Friday night in November, very much a surprise right before Thanksgiving, saying it was going to be on January. very fifth. She was having a burger at a restaurant in Rome and praising their political stance on

Charlie Kirk. And she was just tweeting out just various things. She talked a little bit about a provision in the appropriations bill that would kind of limit lawsuit to get chemical companies. That was later removed from the bill, as we know. I think that's going back in based on something I read today. So based on what I saw, she wasn't in Washington. Later on her last day, she was on CNN. That was kind of, I guess, her exit interview. And since then, she's just been tweeting her congressional page, Twitter account, ex account.

I guess her should say that. Now says former U.S. representative Marjorie Taylor Green, but she's also always maintained a campaign account. One of her tweets this week indicates she may not even identify as Republican anymore because she said she wouldn't be in a political party and outlined all of her grievances that she's had with the party. in her last times in Congress and since this feud that she had with President Trump. Interesting.

And you never would have predicted what's going on with her right now. So do you know what she's planning next? Has she put anything out there about official next steps? He continues to say she has no next steps, that she was stepping down because she didn't want to have an ugly race where Trump has already said he was going to feel. somebody to run against her in the primary. She said she was doing it for her constituents. She has been making the talks show circuit saying that

she says, I apologize. Her words for the toxic politics and that I was part of it. She's also getting married. She's married a journalist, actually. So I'm assuming she's doing some wedding cleaning. She's been posting more, she posted a picture of her and her fiance. They're on a

beach. I'm not sure where they were. But she keeps saying over and over, I have no political aspirations as of now. So all we could do now is take her out of word. I have not and nobody has indicated and I've seen no rumblings that she has

something else. She was considered a candidate for Senate and the rumor was that Trump City wouldn't support her as the Republican candidate for Senate against John Ossoff, who was a Democrat in Georgia. And also she was there was rumors she would run for governor.

But so far since she stepped down, nothing. and there's going to be a special election to replace her. This is very interesting. Governor Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Ruffinsberg, they've said this special election for March 10th. Well, that's almost two months away. But the situation that we have is very interesting.

There are 25 candidates right now, according to the Federal Elections Commission. Qualifying for this starts next week, March 12th. I think that is, I don't know what day of the week that is, But the qualifying starts March 12th, and that's when everybody's official. But a whole bunch of people, 25 of them have already filed with the Federal Elections Commission. Some of them were already going to be running for Green's position. For example, they're just out of 25, some of them are well known, some of them are not.

Sean Harris, who is a Democrat who ran against her in the 2024 election, he received 35% of the vote in Greens District. Green's district is very red. It covers, and Georgia, y'all may not understand Georgia geography, but this corner of northwest Georgia, very rural, and it covers these very rural areas all the way up in Kutusa-Walker-Dade counties, but it also just kind of weaves its way down and ends up in the Metro Atlanta County of Cobb County. She heard that district covers a small portion of Cobb County, which is very different than the top portion of the district in Kutusa and Walker counties.

But Sean Harris is actually, according to... to the FEC is the only one who's raised any significant money. And some of that could be because it's left over from the last time he ran, but he's raised already $1.3 million. So I think the Democrats are going to be pushing for an upset. He is one of only two Democrats in the race. There's one independent. The rest of those candidates are Republican. Goodness. Wow. That's crazy. I don't envy you trying to keep track of all that. Okay. Well, do you have any other predictions, thoughts about how it's going to go or where it's going to leave things in Congress? Well, we already know that Congress has about, I think, five vote majority. Republicans only

have that slim majority already. So I don't know. There were rumors if you follow social media that there will be other Republicans who will say they're not going to run or possibly resign. We already had another Green surprisingly resigned from Congress back in July. That was Mark Green of Tennessee, and there was a special election to fill his seat, and that was won by a Republican, but the Democrat, while not really close in Tennessee, surprisingly got more of the vote than anybody could expect. The Republicans running in the 14th district race to succeed Marjorie Taylor Green, there are a couple of them that are pretty well known, and they're all up in the very top portion of the state. Look out Mountain District Attorney Clay Fuller. He finally filed with

the FEC that popped up today. He's pretty well known up in the North west corner of the state, but if you move on down to Polk, Pauline and the portions of Cobb County, I don't know how well-known he is. You may have actually heard of Senator Colton Moore. He was actually arrested last year outside of the House of Representatives when he was trying to go in to listen to the governor's address because House Speaker John Burns had banned him because of some things he had said about the late House Speaker. He's actually running. He's been very active in talking about that. He's pretty well-known basically just because he got a lot of national publicity. for his arrest. So he's going to be a very common name. But the other Republicans, if you're in local

politics, you may know them if you're in certain counties, but they're just not as well known as Colton Moore and possibly Clayfooler. Okay. Well, we'll have to see how things shape up. Should be an interesting year coming up with the midterm elections in November. So thank you so much, Kim, for sharing all your knowledge on that. You can follow this story and more at the Center Square Dock.