He’s baaack.
Republican Madison Cawthorn, who flamed out of Congress after just one scandal-soaked House term, is trying for a comeback—this time in Florida. On Wednesday, he announced he’s running for the state’s 19th Congressional District, which will be open next year 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 region in 2022.
“This community is my home,” he said. “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 11th District and was, at 25, the youngest member of Congress when he entered in 2021.
But his short tenure became a running tabloid headline. He was accused of insider trading, twice caught with a loaded gun at airport security, and dogged by embarrassing leaked videos.
Cawthorn hit bottom in March 2022, when he claimed that he’d been invited to a D.C. “orgy” and that he’d witnessed prominent Republicans doing cocaine. The comments sparked outrage within the GOP, and earned him a public dressing-down from then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Cawthorn later admitted that his comments were “exaggerated.”
Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, shown in March.
The controversies piled up, but the real damage may have been the sense that he didn’t care about his constituents. His decision to abandon western North Carolina for a new district in the Charlotte area—before courts threw out the GOP’s gerrymandered map—signaled that his career mattered more than the people who sent him to Washington. By the time he ran for reelection in his original district, prominent Republicans had turned on him.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis openly backed now-Rep. Chuck Edwards, describing Cawthorn as an unserious lawmaker with no results to show for his time in office. Edwards leaned into that case, casting himself as a reliable conservative alternative.
Voters agreed: Edwards defeated Cawthorn in the 2022 Republican primary by a slim margin, 33% to 32%.
President Donald Trump, however, never abandoned Cawthorn. In 2022, he asked voters to “give Madison a second chance” after his “foolish mistakes,” and Cawthorn has made it clear he intends to stick 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 spotted on Capitol Hill last month meeting with Republican lawmakers to float his bid for Donalds’ seat. He moved to Cape Coral after leaving Congress, saying his admiration for Donalds was one reason for the relocation.
Yet trouble has followed him. Just weeks ago, he was arrested in Florida after failing to appear in court on a charge of driving with a suspended or revoked license. That incident added to a long list of legal skirmishes and raised questions about whether the controversies that haunted him in North Carolina will once again overshadow his campaign.
Florida’s 19th Congressional District, which covers a swath of the state’s southwest coast, is deep red. Donalds cruised to reelection in 2024, winning by more than 30 percentage points, so the seat is not in play for Democrats.
But the Republican primary is shaping up to be a free-for-all. Several Republicans have filed paperwork to run, with more expected to follow. Among them is another familiar name: former New York Rep. Chris Collins, who resigned from Congress before pleading guilty to federal insider-trading charges. Trump pardoned him in 2020, and now he, too, is eyeing a return to Washington.
Donalds has stayed coy about whether he’ll back Cawthorn as his successor. Asked about it in September by Axios, Donalds offered only a cautious hedge.
“He was 25 years old when he came to Congress. Everybody has an opportunity to grow and mature,” Donalds said.
Maybe so. But North Carolina voters clearly decided they’d had enough. Now, Florida Republicans will have to choose whether they want Cawthorn’s mix of loyalty to Trump and nonstop scandal back in Washington.
If nothing else, the GOP primary promises to be messy—and entertaining.
