In 11th District GOP race, Madison Cawthorn defeats Lynda Bennett, who was endorsed by Meadows and Donald Trump
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
(CFP) — Madison Cawthorn, a 24-year-old political newcomer whose campaign featured his life story as the survivor of a near-fatal car crash that left him in a wheelchair, has won the Republican nomination for the North Carolina U.S. House seat vacated by White House Chief-of-Staff Mark Meadows.
Cawthorn took 66% in Tuesday’s Republican runoff in the 11th District to defeat Lynda Bennett, a close friend of Meadows and his wife who had been endorsed not only by Meadows but by his boss, President Donald Trump. She took 35%.
The district takes in 17 mostly rural counties in the state’s western panhandle.
In December, Meadows announced he would not seek re-election just 30 hours before the filing deadline closed, and Bennett, a Maggie Valley real estate agent, jumped into the race. The chain of events rankled some Republicans in the district, who accused Meadows of trying to engineer Bennett’s election as his successor.
Both Meadows and Bennett have denied any coordination, although Meadows later endorsed her.
Cawthorn, a real estate investor and motivational speaker from Hendersonville, will be a heavy favorite in November in the heavily Republican district against the Democratic nominee, Moe Davis, an Asheville attorney and former chief prosecutor in terrorism trials at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba.
The Constitution requires members of the House to be at least 25; Cawthorn will turn 25 before the new Congress takes office in January.
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