Madison Cawthorn announces which NC district he will run in. What his decision means.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn is returning to his home district to run for reelection after a court-ordered redrawing of North Carolina’s congressional map.

The latest map makes the 11th Congressional District a more promising area for the 26-year-old Republican to run in than the version Cawthorn planned to leave.

“I am excited to run for reelection in North Carolina’s newly solidified 11th congressional district and represent nearly all of my constituents in the 118th Congress,” Cawthorn said in a statement posted on Twitter.

“Western North Carolinians want a fighter in Congress. With their support, I look forward to returning to Washington as a sophomore member and helping enact major change with a historic Republican majority.”

The saga of North Carolina’s 2022 congressional election has become a lengthy one, and Cawthorn has made himself one of the most watched candidates.

The U.S. Constitution does not require a member of Congress to live in the district he or she represents and Cawthorn took full advantage of that.

When state legislators first drew the map in November, they diluted Cawthorn’s district of some of its Republican voters and created a neighboring district that was favorable for N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore to win a seat in Congress.

But Cawthorn announced he would seek reelection in that district including Moore’s home county. He went as far as filing his candidacy there in December, but the N.C. Supreme Court abruptly put the state’s filing period on hold after lawmakers were accused of gerrymandering the districts.

Justices ruled in early February that the map had been created to give Republicans an unfair advantage. State lawmakers redrew it, and then the trial court instead decided to use its own map — which left Cawthorn’s adopted district in the hands of voters who tend to select Democrats to represent them.

Cawthorn could move to the district next door, but he would face a fellow Republican incumbent, Rep. Patrick McHenry.

While Cawthorn had his home district to return to, the newest version of the map appears to have left Moore without a district to run in. The district originally drawn for him, which included some of the Charlotte suburbs and stretched west to Rutherford County, is now a solidly Democratic district after losing some of the more western counties and picking up more of Mecklenburg County. Moore’s home of Cleveland County is in McHenry’s district.

The 11th Congressional District

Going home was Cawthorn’s best move, but even that comes with challenges.

Cawthorn, the youngest member of the 117th Congress, has made a name for himself as one of the country’s more outspoken, Trump-supporting Republicans, who has found himself in a myriad of controversies throughout his first term.

As a result, many Republican and Democrat opponents are waiting for him back home to run against him.

And some local voters have challenged his candidacy, saying he should be banned from office due to his actions surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Their previous challenge against him was undone when the maps were redrawn, but they’re expected to refile it now that he has announced where he plans to run.

A 2014 car accident left Cawthorn paralyzed, and media coverage of his healing process helped elevate his name in western North Carolina. He was just old enough to run for Congress in 2020 and beat Lynda Bennett, who was supposed to be the handpicked successor of U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, when the former congressman retired to become then-President Donald Trump’s chief of staff.

Cawthorn, too, chose a successor to replace him in his home district: 11th District GOP Chairwoman Michele Woodhouse.

Both would face off against Republican state Sen. Chuck Edwards, who has also launched a campaign in Cawthorn’s district since he left.

For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at https://campsite.bio/underthedome or wherever you get your podcasts.

This story was originally published February 28, 2022 at 2:54 PM with the headline "Madison Cawthorn announces which NC district he will run in. What his decision means.."