Who is Madison Cawthorn, the North Carolina Republican who spoke at the convention?
One of the most sought-after opportunities in conservative politics this summer — a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention — is going to a political newcomer from Western North Carolina.
Madison Cawthorn, a 25-year-old candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, addressed the convention Wednesday night — the third night of the RNC — in the 9 p.m. hour. Cawthorn spoke from Washington, D.C.
“If you don’t think young people can change the world, then you just don’t know American history, “ Cawthorn said, citing early life accomplishments of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and James Madison, who he incorrectly credited with signing the Declaration of Independence.
“... In times of peril, young people have stepped up and saved the country abroad and at home. We held the line, scaled the cliffs, crossed oceans, liberated camps and cracked codes.”
If elected, Cawthorn would be the youngest member of Congress. President Donald Trump, who backed his opponent in the GOP primary, called Cawthorn a political star earlier this week.
But his candidacy in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, previously held by current White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, must first overcome several scandals that have bubbled up in recent weeks.
Cawthorn, in a speech before Vice President Mike Pence accepted the Republican nomination, cast himself as a fighter — largely in battle with “radical left.” Cawthorn was paralyzed in a car accident when he was 18. He spoke from a wheelchair, but stood with the aid of a walker at the end of his speech.
“I say to Americans who love our country — young and old — be a radical for freedom. Be a radical for liberty. And be a radical for our republic,” Cawthorn said.
Although the convention began in Charlotte on Monday to formally nominate Trump for a second term in office, the schedule for the four-day event isn’t heavy on North Carolina ties. No elected officials from the Tar Heel State were given speaking time — including Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who is facing a close election against Cal Cunningham as Democrats try to take back control of the U.S. Senate.
So why Cawthorn?
Earlier this week, Trump praised Cawthorn’s good looks and said he is “going to be a star of the party,” the Asheville Citizen-Times reported.
New generation of Republicans
Cawthorn is seeking to replace Meadows in Congress, representing Asheville and most of the rest of the far western part of the state. Meadows left Congress for the White House earlier this year.
If Cawthorn wins in November, he would replace New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 30, as the youngest member of Congress.
In June, he told The New York Times he’s running because he wants young conservatives like him to see they have a place in the party going forward.
“I believe there’s a generational time bomb going off in the Republican Party,” he said in that interview. “For so long, we’ve just kind of been the party of ‘no’ without offering a lot of really good answers. I think we have not been working hard enough to really reach out and try to appeal to younger voters, and we’re starting to see ramifications of that in national elections. We’re continually starting to lose the popular vote.”
He said he holds traditional Republican views, including wanting to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. But he also thinks he will appeal to his peers in a younger generation because of things like his pro-environment stance and a belief that diversity is a good thing.
“You look at border security — after 2015, 2016, when we really started talking about the crisis on our southern border, I believe the way that it was messaged came across as if we were xenophobic, when that’s not the case at all,” he told the New York Times. “I believe all of us love legal immigration. We love how the diversity adds to our country.”
Close race in a safe seat?
On paper, Cawthorn’s path to victory looks easy.
Western North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District was drawn to heavily favor Republicans in 2011. The area is still solidly Republican, even though a Democrat-backed lawsuit in 2019 led to new congressional lines being drawn for the 2020 elections in North Carolina. Even the new, more Democrat-friendly district still would have supported Trump by a wide margin in the 2016 election.
But growing opposition to Trump, as well as several recent controversies involving Cawthorn, have given Democrats hope that their candidate, retired Air Force Col. Moe Davis, could win a surprise victory in Western North Carolina.
Sensing a tightening race, national Democrats have upgraded the race on their list of winnable seats.
“My opponent has no education, training or experience, but he has vacationed at Hitler’s Bavarian hideaway and marked it off his bucket list, cozied up to the alt-right extremist fringe, and focused his attention on stoking fear and division to advance his bigoted agenda,” Davis said in a statement.
“Western North Carolina lags behind and deserves a Representative who will focus solely on the issues that impact the District. Western North Carolina deserves better than Madison Cawthorn.”
An evangelical-focused magazine recently reported that two women from a Christian home-schooling group in Asheville said Cawthorn pressured them into talking about sex and tried to kiss them after they said they weren’t interested. One was in high school at the time and another had just graduated; Cawthorn had recently graduated from the same group, according to the magazine.
Cawthorn’s campaign didn’t respond to two interview requests by The News & Observer. But a campaign spokesman, John Hart, said in an email that Cawthorn didn’t deny making advances on the two teens — and has since apologized to one of them — but denied ever being aggressive or forceful with them.
“Madison denies being aggressive,” Hart said. “There is a big difference between a failed teenage romantic advance and being forceful, to the extent that’s possible when you’re a paraplegic.”
While the women’s allegations against Cawthorn were reported by WORLD Magazine, a publication about issues relevant to evangelical Christians, he’s also facing attacks from the left.
The liberal website Jezebel wrote a lengthy article on what it claimed were multiple indications that Cawthorn is practicing “white supremacist-adjacent nationalism,” including an Instagram post in which he called Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler by the honorific title “Fuhrer” and expressed his excitement to visit Hitler’s favorite vacation spot.
Hart told the N&O he thinks that both stories were planted by Democratic Party operatives because they’re scared that voters like Cawthorn and the policies he supports. He compared Cawthorn to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Republican who also has been accused of sexual misdeeds as a young man.
“When attempts to portray Madison Cawthorn as a white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer failed, national Democrats turned to their new favorite pastime of Kavanaugh-like character assassination,” Hart said. “Democrats will stop at nothing to avoid talking about their radical, socialist agenda.”
Cawthorn, despite turning down interview requests with numerous media outlets about the various accusations against him, is active on social media, where he frequently posts pictures of himself and short political messages.
“I’m telling you, we have got to fight back against the socialist left that is attacking us,” Cawthorn said in a selfie video he posted on Facebook Tuesday, asking people to donate to his campaign. “Because despite all the whining and crying they perpetrate and do all the time, they’re actually outspending us by 2:1 this election cycle. Their billionaires like Mike Bloomberg and George Soros are trying to steal an election from us.”
On those social media accounts and his official campaign page, Cawthorn tells an inspiring personal story: He dreamed of going to the Naval Academy and even got Meadows to nominate him for a coveted spot, but then a car accident left him paralyzed and in a wheelchair. He then started a career as a real estate investor and motivational speaker, and now is running for Congress to represent a new generation of Republicans.
Increased scrutiny
Some pieces of that story have come under scrutiny. The Asheville Citizen-Times reported earlier this month that Cawthorn had been giving voters a “false impression” about the Naval Academy. He was rejected from the military academy before he was paralyzed in that accident, not after, the paper reported.
Cawthorn discussed his accident in Wednesday’s speech.
“This is a time of great adversity for our country. And I know something about adversity,” Cawthorn said.
He said he was given “a 1% chance of surviving.”
“My accident has given me new eyes to see and new ears to hear. God protected my mind and my ability to speak. I say to people who feel forgotten, ignored and invisible: I see you. I hear you,” Cawthorn said.
Despite branding himself as CEO of a real estate investing company, his own financial disclosures to run for office this year show he has no income from any business. His only income comes from a few stock investments, mostly in Amazon, Cawthorn reported.
The Charlotte Observer reported that the only real estate investment his company appears to have made was a $20,000 purchase of six acres of land in Georgia.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published August 26, 2020 at 6:31 PM.
