Incumbent freshman GOP congressman Madison Cawthorn lost Tuesday night’s Republican congressional primary and the party nomination for North Carolina’s eleventh district to state senator Chuck Edwards after a series of scandals shook his budding political career.
Edwards, who has represented district 48 in the heart of Cawthorn's district since 2016, has been considered a more principled conservative alternative, with impressive endorsements from organizations promoting police, gun rights, and legal immigration, our Dan McLaughlin noted. He has the support of major North Carolina Republicans including Senator Thom Tillis, state house speaker Tim Moore, state senate president pro tempore Phil Berger, and state senate majority whip Jim Perry.
As a rookie candidate, Cawthorn seized the open seat in the deep-red mountainous district in 2020 by twelve points. Edwards is similarly expected to win the general election in November.
Known as a firebrand of the “America First” populist platform espoused by former President Trump, Cawthorn often spoke in the chamber with fiery rhetoric about the border crisis, the China threat, and the economic failures of the Biden administration.
But over the last month, he became saddled with a series of scandals dealing with his past inappropriate behavior, all of which surfaced in media coverage around the same time. Cawthorn first fueled rumors that his congressional colleagues were attending cocaine-involved orgies, but could not expound further when pressed for specific details, leading House minority leader Kevin McCarthy to express in a private meeting with the junior legislator that he had “lost his trust.”
Then, late last month, Cawthorn was apprehended at an airport with a loaded firearm. And in early May, he was revealed to be the subject of a leaked video featuring a lingerie-laden Cawthorn dancing on a man in a provocative manner, which he subsequently brushed off as “goofy vacation photos.”
Since both candidates reached the 30 percent vote threshold in the primary, a run-off election cannot be requested by the second-place candidate, according to the N.C. State Board of Elections.
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