In a big upset, businessman Madison Cawthorn decisively defeated real-estate agent Lynda Bennett, who had the endorsement of both Donald Trump and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, to win the Republican primary runoff to succeed Meadows in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District. With 46,000 votes in, Cawthorn led Bennett 66-34 in a contest the Associated Press called on election night. This Appalachian North Carolina seat backed Trump 57-40, and Daily Kos Elections rates the general election as Safe Republican.
A good part of Cawthorn’s electoral success may be due to his background. He was the subject of several nonpolitical local stories in the years since he survived a near-fatal 2014 car wreck that left him in a wheelchair. Cawthorn, who will turn 25 in August, also portrayed himself as a representative of an "emerging generation of Americans," and he would be the first-ever member of Congress to be born in the 1990s.
Bennett, meanwhile, has been active in local Republican politics for a long time, and she’d made a good deal of enemies. In a story in the Smoky Mountain News that ran one day before the runoff, several Republicans told reporter Cory Vaillancourt that, while they respected Trump, they utterly disliked Bennett. One of them said, “I have watched her in person completely go off on fellow Republicans. I watched her stomp her feet, cross her arms, turn her back, and get in the face of the chair of the district.”
Plenty of conservatives also expressed their anger when talking about the circumstances of Bennett’s campaign. Meadows announced his departure in December one day before the filing deadline and after it was too late for anyone running for another office to switch to this race. But Bennett, who is a close friend of Meadows’ wife, seemed to be the one person who was already prepared to run.
As Politico wrote, Bennett had registered a campaign website domain in late October, back when everyone assumed the congressman would run again. Politico also noted that the person who appeared to have reserved this for Bennett was Scott Meadows―who just happens to be Mark Meadows’ brother. Two months later, Bennett also set up a Facebook campaign page five hours before Mark Meadows broke his own retirement news. Both Bennett and Meadows, who would resign months later to become Trump’s chief of staff, denied he’d timed his announcement to aid Bennett, but plenty of Republicans at home were skeptical.
Bennett’s own words also may have played a role in her defeat. Bennett was recorded at a 2016 Haywood County GOP meeting appearing to trash Trump, declaring among other things, “I am a never Trump person. I don't want Trump. I am not for him, I am against him. Never Trump.” Bennett would insist she’d only been roleplaying a Republican opposed to Trump, but that didn’t deter Cawthorn’s allies at Protect Freedom PAC from using the audio in a commercial against her. If you take nothing else from this contest, please remember this: Never play "Dungeons & Dragons: Donald Trump Edition."
P.S.: Bennett defeat is the first time that a Trump-endorsed candidate lost a primary by double digits since 2017, when Alabama Sen. Luther Strange went down 55-45 against Roy Moore. Earlier this month, though, Trump-backed Virginia Rep. Denver Riggleman lost the Republican nominating convention 58-42 to Bob Good.
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