North Carolina Republicans look to sink GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn

North Carolina Republicans believe Rep. Madison Cawthorn is beatable in a May 17 party primary, following hisrecent comments about orgies and cocaine, multiple sources in the state told Yahoo News.

Cawthorn can still secure the nomination if he gets more than 30% of the primary vote, which is what he’ll need to avoid a runoff. But Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’s decision to endorse one of Cawthorn’s primary opponents, state Sen. Chuck Edwards, is the biggest sign yet that the North Carolina GOP believes it can oust Cawthorn and replace him with a less attention-grabbing alternative.

"Madison Cawthorn has fallen well short of the most basic standards western North Carolina expects from their representatives," Tillis said of his decision to back Edwards.

Cawthorn’s comments on a conservative podcast in which he accused other members of Congress of taking part in sex parties and illicit drug use angered his fellow lawmakers. He later tried to walk back the remarks, saying they were “exaggerated.”

But the 26-year-old is vulnerable to defeat in large part because of two other mistakes he’s made this year that have angered the GOP establishment, as well as grassroots activists, in North Carolina.

Last November, Cawthorn announced he would switch congressional districts and run in a newly drawn district where it would be easier for him to win reelection. The Republican House speaker in the state Legislature, Tim Moore, had planned on running for Congress in that district. Cawthorn, in an implicit dig at Moore, explained his switch by saying he wanted to make sure an “establishment, go-along-to-get-along Republican” did not win that seat.

But after the North Carolina Supreme Court rejected new congressional maps drawn by the Legislature, Cawthorn said he would switch back to his old district.

While he was saying he would run in the new district, multiple GOP candidates had joined the primary to replace him in his old one. They all decided to stay in the race after he jumped back in, including Michele Woodhouse, a former local party chair, who says Cawthorn had endorsed her. Federal election records show that Cawthorn donated to her campaign before he switched back to his old district.

The congressman angered the top Republican power brokers in the state by announcing his intention to move. When he switched back, he irritated grassroots activists, said one person working to oust him.

“He’s ticked a lot of people off,” a North Carolina Republican lawmaker told Yahoo News.

Moore, the House speaker, has endorsed Edwards, just as Tillis did. This week, Moore called Cawthorn a “clown.”

“If you have clowns in office who aren’t serious about what they’re doing, you can’t get somewhere,” Moore, who is now running for reelection to the state House, told local reporters. “I’m just kind of without the words to describe what congressman Cawthorn is doing and saying. I mean, some of these ridiculous recent comments that continue to build on one another.”

Moore and the Republican leader in the state Senate, Phil Berger, hosted a fundraiser for Edwards this week.

It’s not just Cawthorn’s remarks about orgies and cocaine that have drawn the ire of other Republicans. This week, after the latest episode, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy summoned Cawthorn to his office for a dressing-down. McCarthy said afterward that Cawthorn provided “no evidence behind his statements” and that “he’s got a lot of members very upset.”

"I just told him he's lost my trust, he's gonna have to earn it back, and I laid out everything I find is unbecoming," McCarthy said.

Cawthorn has a long track record of questionable behavior, and of late he has increasingly found himself on the wrong side of his own party. In early March, he called Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky a “thug” and said the Ukrainian government was “incredibly evil,” which angered many Republican lawmakers and is at odds with how most GOP voters view Ukraine and its response to the Russian invasion.

Cawthorn had raised $2.8 million for his reelection at the last disclosure, at the end of 2021. His penchant for garnering headlines has become a successful way to drum up online donations from rabid partisans willing to give $5 or $10 at a time.

But the freshman lawmaker had spent $2.6 million at that point, most of what he had raised so far, and had only about $282,000 left to spend.

Such a small war chest might have been fine in a noncompetitive primary. But Cawthorn will likely need plenty of cash to win a close contest.

The fast-approaching primary will be a test of whether he can surpass the 30% threshold. When he was first elected in 2020, Cawthorn received only 20% in the primary but then won the ensuing runoff.

In the meantime, Democrats have pounced on his comments. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., went so far as to connect Cawthorn’s remarks with the ongoing sex trafficking investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

“Not sure why Republicans are acting so shocked by Cawthorn’s alleged revelations about their party,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter this week. “One of their members is being investigated for sex trafficking a minor and they’ve been pretty OK w/ that. They issued more consequences to members who voted to impeach Trump."

The next day, Gaetz, who denies any wrongdoing, told a reporter that he did not know about what Cawthorn was referencing.

“I don’t get invited to the same parties Madison Cawthorn does,” Gaetz said.