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Political Tornado: Can North Carolina U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn survive his penchant for controversy?
Decision to switch districts, comments about cocaine use and orgies have put his political future in jeopardy
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
ASHEVILLE (CFP) — When Madison Cawthorn came out of nowhere to win a North Carolina U.S. House seat in 2020 at the tender age of 25, he was seen as a handsome, fresh-faced rising star in the Republican firmament, an ardent partisan of Donald Trump with a compelling personal story of overcoming hardship.
U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-North Carolina
Now, less than two years later, a series of missteps and controversies has alienated GOP colleagues in the House, drawn active opposition to his re-election from top state Republicans, and landed him in a crowded primary where he’s fighting for his political life.
So, can Cawthorn regroup, retool and survive, or will his political career crash ignominiously after barely taking flight?
To be sure, Cawthorn has significant assets –- strong name recognition, a fervent following among the MAGA base, and a reputation as a passionate foe of liberalism in all of its forms. He has raised $2.9 million, nearly three times as much as any of his primary opponents and a massive haul for a district without expensive media markets.
Most importantly, he has been endorsed by Trump, who invited him to speak at an April 9 rally in Selma even as House Republican colleagues were setting their hair on fire over Cawthorn’s ill-considered podcast musings about being invited to orgies and witnessing cocaine use.
That controversy – coming on the heels of Cawthorn’s dismissal of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “thug” and news that he was arrested for driving on a revoked license – prompted both of North Carolina’s U.S. senators and the two top Republicans in the legislature to publicly support one of Cawthorn’s primary opponents, State Senator Chuck Edwards from Hendersonville.
Cawthorn was also on the receiving end of a talking to from House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who bluntly told reporters that Cawthorn wasn’t telling the truth and had lost his trust.
Cawthorn has shown little sign of being chastened by the experience, issuing a statement afterward saying he “will not back down to the mob” and adding: “My comments on a recent podcast appearance calling out corruption have been used by the left and the media to disparage my Republican colleagues and falsely insinuate their involvement in illicit activities.”
But perhaps Cawthorn’s most consequential political blunder was his decision to abandon the 11th District in Western North Carolina, where he was elected in 2020, to run for re-election instead in a new district closer to Charlotte, created by Republican legislators as part of a map gerrymandered to the party’s advantage.
The state Supreme Court threw out that map and adopted a new one that obliterated Cawthorn’s new district, prompting him to return to the 11th. But by that time, seven Republicans had already entered the race, and all of them decided to stay.
Had he not initially forsaken the district, Cawthorn would probably have had an easy road through the primary and been the favorite in November in a conservative, pro-Trump district. Now, he faces a dogfight in which the overriding issue will be him – his judgment, his temperament, and his behavior.
However, what may rescue Cawthorn in the end is North Carolina’s unique primary system, which only requires a candidate to get 30% of the vote to avoid a runoff. So his name recognition and MAGA support could be enough to triumph in an eight-candidate field.
Edwards has consolidated support from the party establishment. But he’s lagged in fundraising behind another competitor, Bruce O’Connell, a hotel owner from Haywood County who drew national attention for fighting the Biden administration’s COVID-19 restrictions.
Also in the race in Michelle Woodhouse, the Republican party chair for the 11th District, who bills herself as the “America First” candidate in the race and was endorsed by Cawthorn as his replacement when he moved to the different district.
If the anti-Cawthorn vote divides between these contenders, he’s likely to finish first and will win if he can clear 30%.
Waiting in the wings for whoever survives is Democratic Buncombe County Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, a pastor and LGBTQ activist who has raised $1.2 million so far for the race.
This is not district that has been in play in recent years, although a Democrat held it as recently as 2013. But Cawthorn’s presence in the race has clearly helped Beach-Ferrara’s fundraising, and she’ll raise even more if he survives the primary.
This plays into the argument by Cawthorn’s primary opponents that, given his flaws, he’s vulnerable to a Democrat in a way they are not. Whether that argument gains traction may depend on whether the tornado of controversy surrounding Madison Cawthorn dissipates — or continues to churn.
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Bromance Bye: Donald Trump pulls Mo Brooks endorsement in Alabama U.S. Senate race
Trump says Brooks became “woke” in suggesting Republicans stop dwelling on 2020
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
MONTGOMERY (CFP) — Donald Trump has rescinded his endorsement of Alabama U.S Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, accusing him of becoming “woke” for urging Republicans to put the results of the 2020 election behind them and focus on the future.
Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Mo Brooks
Trump’s decision is a blow to Brooks’s struggling campaign – but it could also save Trump from what increasingly looked to be an embarrassing defeat by his anointed candidate in the state’s May 24 primary.
It is also likely to set up a spirited chase to get Trump’s seal of approval between Brooks’s Republican rivals, Katie Britt and Mike Durant.
After the announcement, Brooks issued a statement calling Trump’s decision “disappointing” but insisting that he could not do what Trump wanted — try to overturn Joe Biden’s election win after Congress finalized it on January 6, 2021, when rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
“I’ve told President Trump the truth knowing full well that it might cause President Trump to rescind his endorsement,” Brooks said. “But I took a sworn oath to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution. I honor my oath. That is the way I am. I break my sworn oath for no man.”
Even after Trump voted him off the island, Brooks reiterated his allegiance to the former president, saying he was the “only proven America First candidate in this Senate race” and “the only candidate who fought voter fraud and election theft when it counted, between November 3 and January 6.”
He also accused Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of manipulating Trump into pulling the endorsement, although he didn’t explain how.
The denouement between Trump and Brooks is the end of what was once a fervent political romance, capped by Brooks’s fiery speech before the January 6th Capitol riot in which he told the crowd that “today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”
But things started to turn during a Trump rally last August in Cullman, when Brooks was booed by the crowd after saying that Trump partisans upset by the 2020 results should “put that behind you.”
In his statement withdrawing his endorsement, Trump said that when he heard that statement, “I said, ‘Mo, you just blew the Election, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” even though he continued supporting Brooks for seven more months.
Brooks had also refused for months to say he would oppose Trump nemesis McConnell as Senate party leader, before finally blasting him as “a weak-kneed, debt junkie, open-border RINO Republican” amid rumors that Trump was about to pull his support.
Brooks, 67, has represented North Alabama in the House since 2011. In 2017, he ran for Senate in a special election, coming in third in the Republican primary.
This time around, Brooks has lagged in polling and fundraising behind Britt, a former aide to retiring U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, and Durant, a businessman and former Army officer whose helicopter was shot down in Somalia in 1993, an episode immortalized in the film “Black Hawk Down.”
They are running to replace Shelby, an Alabama political legend retiring after six Senate terms. He has endorsed Britt.
In his statement pulling his Brooks endorsement, Trump said he expected to endorse a candidate in the race “in the near future.” Reuters reported that both Britt and Durant had met with Trump in recent days.
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Texas Republican U.S. Rep. Van Taylor ends campaign after admitting affair with ‘ISIS Bride’
Taylor had been forced into a runoff over support for January 6th investigation
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
PLANO, Texas (CFP) — Just one day after being forced into a primary runoff to keep his seat, Texas Republican U.S. Rep. Van Taylor, has ended his re-election campaign after admitting to an extramarital affair with the widow of an Islamic jihadist who fought for the terrorist group ISIS
Texas Republican U.S. Rep Van Taylor drops out of re-election race
The revelation of the affair appears to have been engineered by one of Taylor’s GOP primary opponents, who leaked an interview with the woman to a right-wing website.
In an email to supporters, Taylor, 49 — a married father of three from Plano whose campaign website described him as a “Family Man” — called the affair “the greatest failure of my life.”
“I want to apologize for the pain I have caused with my indiscretion, most of all to my wife Anne and our three daughters,” Taylor said.
The woman involved, Tania Joya, a British national who lived in Taylor’s district, was the widow of John Georgelas, an American convert to Islam who died fighting for ISIS in Syria in 2017. She has been dubbed as the “ISIS Bride” by the British tabloids.
With Taylor’s departure, former Colin County Judge Keith Self, who finished second in Tuesday’s primary in District 3, will become the Republican nominee and the favorite to win the seat in November in the heavily Republican district in the northern Dallas suburbs.
Taylor, who was seeking a third term in the House, was facing political headwinds from Donald Trump followers angry at him for voting to certify President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win and supporting a congressional investigation into the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol.
He won 49% of the primary vote against four challengers, one of whom, Suzanne Harp, helped engineer the public scandal that brought Taylor’s campaign to an end.
The Dallas Morning News reported that Joya revealed the affair to Harp in an attempt to get her to use the information to privately pressure Taylor to leave Congress. Instead, Harp sent a supporter to interview Joya and leaked audio of the interview to National File, a right-wing website that posted it two days before the primary.
Harp finished third behind Taylor and Self.
Joya, who left her husband and fled to Turkey shortly after he took her and their children to Syria, told the Dallas Morning News that she met Taylor through her work helping to reprogram jihadists away from extremism. Their affair lasted nine months, she said.
She also claimed that Taylor had given her $5,000 to help with expenses on the condition she not disclose the affair.
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Texas U.S. House Primaries: Incumbents Henry Cuellar, Van Taylor forced into runoffs
Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw crushes opponents angry over his criticism of Donald Trump
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
AUSTIN (CFP) – Two incumbent Texas U.S. House members, Democrat Henry Cuellar and Republican Van Taylor, have been forced into primary election runoffs after narrowly failing to gain outright majorities in Tuesday’s primary.
U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Van Taylor forced into primary runoffs
In District 28 in South Texas, Cuellar has an 800-vote lead over Laredo immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros, in a rematch of their 2020 contest. They will face each other again May 24, after neither cleared 50%.
In District 3 in suburban Dallas, Taylor –- under fire from Donald Trump supporters for voting to certify President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win and supporting a congressional investigation into the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol – came in 48.7% in a race against four challengers.
However, a day after the primary, Taylor withdrew from the race after admitting to an extramarital affair, which will give the nomination to the second place finisher, former Collin County Judge Keith Self.
In other U.S. House races Tuesday, Republican U.S. Rep Dan Crenshaw survived a challenge from primary opponents upset over his criticism of Trump. Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL seen as one of the party’s rising stars since his election in 2018, took 75% to crush three opponents in District 2 in suburban Houston.
In District 8 in suburban Houston, Morgan Luttrell, a Navy veteran and former adviser in the U.S. Department of Energy who had the backing of Republican leaders in Washington, won 53% in the GOP primary to avoid a runoff.
The contest had been seen as a proxy fight over the future direction of the party between Luttrell and Christian Collins, a political consultant and podcaster who was backed by far-right voices in the House Freedom Caucus. In the end, Luttrell beat Collins by more than 30 points.
In District 28, which stretches from the suburbs of San Antonio to the U.S.-Mexico border, Cuellar took 48.5% of the vote to 45.6% for Cisneros.
Cisneros is running with strong backing of luminaries on the Democratic left in her bid to unseat the more conservative Cuellar, who opposes gun control and is the last pro-life Democrat left in the House.
While Cisneros swept the more urban parts of the district, Cuellar rolled in rural areas and in Laredo, where he has been a political fixture for decades. He went ahead when results from Starr County were finally reported early Wednesday, where he took 70% of the vote.
Cuellar is also running under the shadow of a January FBI raid on his home and office, related to an investigation of donations connected to Azerbaijan. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Republicans, buoyed by Trump’s strong showing among Hispanic voters in South Texas in 2020, have targeted the district as a pick-up opportunity.
The Republican race is headed to a runoff between Cassy Garcia, a former aide to Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, and Sandra Whitten, who was the party’s nominee for the seat in 2020.
In Dallas, the Democratic race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson in District 30 is headed to a runoff between State Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who took 48%, and Jane Hope Hamilton, a former congressional aide who served as state director for the Biden campaign in 2020, who took 17%.
The winner is likely headed to Congress from the heavily Democratic district. Johnson has endorsed Crockett as her successor.
In Austin, in the Democratic primary for the open District 35 seat, Austin City Councilman Greg Casar won the race without a runoff, making him the favorite to win in November in the heavily Democratic district.
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Preemptive Strike: North Carolina U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn sues to block ballot challenge
Cawthorn says attempt to toss him off 2022 ballot for role in January 6th is unconstitutional
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
ASHEVILLE (CFP) — Tucked inside the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in lesser known Section 3, is a provision that says “no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress” if, having taken an oath to support the Constitution “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-North Carolina
A North Carolina federal judge is now being called upon to decide whether that prohibition — meant to keep unreconstructed Confederates out of Congress after the Civil War — is applicable to supporters of Donald Trump involved in events surrounding the January 6, 2020 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
North Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a fiercely pro-Trump partisan who spoke at a rally on the Ellipse before the riot, has gone to federal court to block the North Carolina State Elections Board from hearing a complaint filed by voters in his district, asking that he be barred from the 2022 ballot over his actions that day.
If successful, his preemptive strike would prevent the board’s Democratic majority from possibly agreeing that his actions amounted to “insurrection” and barring him from seeking re-election.
His case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Richard Myers in Wilmington, whom Trump appointed to the federal bench in 2019.
The group that organized the effort to disqualify Cawthorn, Free Speech for People, is planning similar challenges against other conservative pro-Trump lawmakers who have raised false claims of voter fraud and riled up the crowd on January 6th.
Section 3 does not outline a mechanism to disqualify lawmakers for “insurrection,” or even define the term. So the ad-hoc effort to use it as a cudgel against lawmakers who have promoted Trump’s unproven allegations of voter fraud plows untested legal ground that Cawthorn’s suit might help define.
Another aspect of the legal fight could be the conditions attached to North Carolina’s readmission to the Union in 1868, which required the state to enforce the 14th Amendment.
The North Carolina elections board has not acted on the voters’ challenge. However, state law requires that the board automatically hold a hearing if challengers establish a “reasonable suspicion” that there is a valid reason for disqualification, a provision that Cawthorn says violates his First Amendment right to run for office.
Cawthorn also contends that the challenge statute would require him to prove he didn’t engage in insurrection or rebellion, rather than the challengers proving that he did, which violates his rights under the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
And finally, he argues that under the Constitution, only Congress has the authority to decide who is or is not eligible to be a member, not a state board.
He wants the judge to prevent the state elections board from even hearing the challenge, contending the entire effort is a constitutional affront.
In a statement, Cawthorn said the challenge statute is “being used as a weapon by liberal Democrats to attempt to defeat our democracy by having state bureaucrats, rather than the people, choose who will represent North Carolina in Congress.”
But Ron Fein, Free Speech for People’s legal director, said in a statement that “Cawthorn’s attempt to bypass the state’s well-developed procedures for resolving candidacy challenges is based on misunderstandings of federal and state law,” particularly the state’s agreement to enforce the 14th Amendment.
“It is unfortunate that Madison Cawthorn has decided to run to federal court instead of complying with the process before the State Board of Elections,” Fein said. “We intend to move to intervene in this federal court case to oppose Cawthorn’s attempted end-run around the laws that the people of North Carolina enacted for addressing candidacy challenges.”
Under state law, the five-member election board has three members from the same party as the governor – currently Democrat Roy Cooper – and two members of the opposing party.
After Cooper was elected in 2016, Republicans who control the legislature passed legislation to reconfigure the board to keep it out of Democratic hands, but Cooper successfully went to court to overturn that effort.
Cawthorn, 26, from Hendersonville, is the youngest member of Congress. He was elected in 2020 and took his oath of office, vowing to uphold the Constitution, just days before the January 6th riot.
He has announced that he plans for re-election in the state’s newly configured 13th District, rather than the 11th District in Western North Carolina that he currently represents. However, the state’s new map is being challenged in both state and federal courts and could be redrawn.
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