RALEIGH, NC (AP) — U.S. Representative Madison Cawthorn’s prominent role as the youngest pro-Donald Trump agitator in Congress may rub people right and left in his North Carolina district in the wrong direction.
That has made the 26-year-old culture fighter a political celebrity on social media and a successful fundraiser. He is near the top of the list of the former president’s most vocal allies on Capitol Hill.
But a series of casual political and personal mistakes have led the power of the major state Republicans as well as traditional enemies to oppose Cawthorn’s reelection bid. Some gaffes have made headlines, such as a gaffe that annoyed GOP colleagues who believed he was insinuating that they were having orgies and snorting cocaine. Others were lustful, such as recently released videos showing him in sexually suggestive poses.
But perhaps the most dramatic event at home was when he decided to move to another seat in the U.S. House, then return to the mountainous 11th congressional district he now represents as the dividing lines shifted again through the lawsuit reshuffle. .
The two top Republican leaders in the General Assembly have expressed support for a rival of Cawthorn – State Sen. Chuck Edwards, one of the seven challengers in the May 17 primary. With Trump winning North Carolina twice and endorsing Cawthorn this year, his reelection to a Republican seat in a strong GOP year would have seemed likely.
Now, after just one term in office, the budding congressman faces a tough primary challenge, with a tough general election battle if he survives.
“I don’t know what happened to him, but I do know this: The people of Western North Carolina are not represented in Washington, D.C.,” said Michele Woodhouse, who was once an ally of Cawthorn but now told him rises. †
U.S. Senator Thom Tillis, RN.C., endorsed Edwards in the race in late March, saying, “Cawthorn fell far short of the most basic standards Western North Carolina expects of their representatives.” A super PAC aligned with Tillis takes the unusual action of spending $1.5 million in the district on mailings and TV ads, one of which Cawthorn calls a “reckless embarrassment” and “unfair disaster.”
Cawthorn fights back, accusing the Washington establishment and Tillis of trying to take him out.
“I’ve never folded in Washington and the swamp hates me for it,” he says in an ad. “They want someone who makes backroom deals to sell our values and someone who leaves America First principles.”
The 11th district field became crowded with known or well-funded challengers after Cawthorn decided in the fall to run in another district closer to Charlotte under boundaries that had been adjusted during the reclassification that would have made his path to reelection much easier.
But the Statewide House map was quashed by state courts, and its reform eventually forced Cawthorn to return to what is largely the 11th district he currently represents in late February. Meanwhile, Edwards, Woodhouse and other Republicans had been walking around there for months.
“Obviously his interest was to go elsewhere and pursue a political career elsewhere after we, myself included in this district, worked to get him elected,” Edwards said in an interview. “He turned his back on us.”
Cawthorn’s campaign said he was not available for an interview. Campaign spokesman Luke Ball wrote in an email that the congressman is “focused on moving forward, uniting the NC-11 GOP and winning the November election, not re-challenging the realignment process.”
Cawthorn infuriated fellow Republicans in Congress when he claimed on a podcast that he had been invited to an orgy in Washington and that he had seen leaders in the drug-ending movement use cocaine. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy publicly chided him for the comments.
He has been arrested three times by police since October, twice for speeding and once for driving with a revoked driver’s license. He has been caught with weapons at airport checkpoints twice in the past year, including two weeks ago. He called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug” after Russia invaded the country.
“It was analogous to Santa tearing up on Christmas Eve,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University.
In a nearly eight-minute video posted to social media last week, Cawthorn apologized for speeding and acknowledged carrying a gun through airport security was a mistake: “I must own this one.”
But he opposed other accusations in news articles, calling them “bizarre.” And he later described two videos portraying him in sexually suggestive poses as part of a “drip campaign” by his enemies to flood the district with negative stories in the final days of the race.
“I was rude to a friend and trying to be funny,” he tweeted over a video. “We acted silly and joked, that was it. I am NOT withdrawing.”
In 2020, many conservatives saw Cawthorn as a rising star who could bring young people into the party. He turned 25 – the constitutionally required minimum age to serve in the House – during the campaign.
Cawthorn, who uses a wheelchair after being partially paralyzed in a car accident as a teenager, leapt forward by winning a primary runoff for the seat vacated by Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows. Both Meadows and Trump had endorsed Cawthorn’s main rival, but the former president quickly became an ally.
“I love him because he’s never controversial,” Trump joked during a meeting with Cawthorn last month. “There is no controversy. But you know what? He loves this country. He loves this state and I can tell you, he is respected everywhere. He has a great voice.”
Some voters believe he’s more interested in fueling the culture wars or posing on Instagram than helping the neighborhood.
Dairy farmer Bradley Johnston, 59, an unaffiliated Henderson County voter, said Cawthorn seemed like a “smart young man” who “we all thought would go to Washington and represent the values we liked.”
“He just hasn’t behaved in the way that he can be a great representative in the future in my opinion,” Johnston said. Registered independents can vote in the GOP primaries, and Johnston backs hotel operator Bruce O’Connell.
The early personal vote ends Saturday. If the best vote-catcher does not receive more than 30% of the votes cast after Tuesday, the two leading candidates will go to a second round in July. In the Democratic primary with six candidates, Secretary and LGBTQ activist Jasmine Beach-Ferrara was the largest fundraiser.
Even if Cawthorn wins the primaries, he still won’t have completely escaped a formal challenge to his candidacy by voters who say he should be disqualified for his involvement in the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Capitol uprising. 6 January.
Cawthorn got a federal judge to block the state council from electing to investigate the challenge. That ruling is on appeal.
While the 11th district, which stretches 160 miles from east Asheville to the border with North Georgia, is a haven for retirees, it may be new voters who decide the race.
“Madison is a very flashy person and a character himself,” said Brian Penland, 22, of Franklin, a student at Western Carolina University who refused to give up his preference in the race. “Whether people like him or not… he’s here and he’s made his mark in western North Carolina. And the rest is up to the voters.”
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