He’s baaack.
Republican Madison Cawthorn, who flamed out of Congress after only one scandal-soaked Home time period, is attempting for a comeback—this time in Florida. On Wednesday, he introduced he’s working for the state’s nineteenth Congressional District, which will probably be open subsequent yr since incumbent Rep. Byron Donalds has launched a bid for governor.
In his announcement video, Cawthorn pitched Florida as “the heart of the MAGA movement” and spotlighted his volunteer work in southwest Florida after Hurricane Ian devastated the area in 2022.
“This community is my home,” he mentioned. “I know what it means to be underestimated, and I know what it takes to fight back. That same spirit is what I’ll carry to Washington.”
Cawthorn represented North Carolina’s eleventh District and was, at 25, the youngest member of Congress when he entered in 2021.
However his quick tenure turned a working tabloid headline. He was accused of insider buying and selling, twice caught with a loaded gun at airport safety, and dogged by embarrassing leaked movies.
Cawthorn hit backside in March 2022, when he claimed that he’d been invited to a D.C. “orgy” and that he’d witnessed distinguished Republicans doing cocaine. The feedback sparked outrage throughout the GOP, and earned him a public dressing-down from then-Home Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy. Cawthorn later admitted that his feedback had been “exaggerated.”
Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, proven in March.
The controversies piled up, however the true injury could have been the sense that he didn’t care about his constituents. His determination to desert western North Carolina for a brand new district within the Charlotte space—earlier than courts threw out the GOP’s gerrymandered map—signaled that his profession mattered greater than the individuals who despatched him to Washington. By the point he ran for reelection in his authentic district, distinguished Republicans had turned on him.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis brazenly backed now-Rep. Chuck Edwards, describing Cawthorn as an unserious lawmaker with no outcomes to point out for his time in workplace. Edwards leaned into that case, casting himself as a dependable conservative various.
Voters agreed: Edwards defeated Cawthorn within the 2022 Republican main by a slim margin, 33% to 32%.
President Donald Trump, nonetheless, by no means deserted Cawthorn. In 2022, he requested voters to “give Madison a second chance” after his “foolish mistakes,” and Cawthorn has made it clear he intends to stay by Trump as he plots his return. In his Florida launch, he promised to run “to stand with President Trump.”
Cawthorn has been laying the groundwork for months. Axios reported he was noticed on Capitol Hill final month assembly with Republican lawmakers to drift his bid for Donalds’ seat. He moved to Cape Coral after leaving Congress, saying his admiration for Donalds was one motive for the relocation.
But bother has adopted him. Simply weeks in the past, he was arrested in Florida after failing to seem in court docket on a cost of driving with a suspended or revoked license. That incident added to a protracted record of authorized skirmishes and raised questions on whether or not the controversies that haunted him in North Carolina will as soon as once more overshadow his marketing campaign.
Florida’s nineteenth Congressional District, which covers a swath of the state’s southwest coast, is deep pink. Donalds cruised to reelection in 2024, profitable by greater than 30 proportion factors, so the seat is just not in play for Democrats.
However the Republican main is shaping as much as be a free-for-all. A number of Republicans have filed paperwork to run, with extra anticipated to observe. Amongst them is one other acquainted title: former New York Rep. Chris Collins, who resigned from Congress earlier than pleading responsible to federal insider-trading expenses. Trump pardoned him in 2020, and now he, too, is eyeing a return to Washington.
Donalds has stayed coy about whether or not he’ll again Cawthorn as his successor. Requested about it in September by Axios, Donalds provided solely a cautious hedge.
“He was 25 years old when he came to Congress. Everybody has an opportunity to grow and mature,” Donalds mentioned.
Possibly so. However North Carolina voters clearly determined they’d had sufficient. Now, Florida Republicans should select whether or not they need Cawthorn’s mixture of loyalty to Trump and nonstop scandal again in Washington.
If nothing else, the GOP main guarantees to be messy—and entertaining.
