He’s back…
Former North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn is jumping back into politics, this time launching a bid in Florida’s 19th Congressional District.
Cawthorn pointed to the recent assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk as a core reason behind his return to the political scene, though the 30-year-old former congressman said he had been “juggling” the idea of running for Congress since Florida’s 19th District Representative Byron Donalds announced he would be vacating the seat to run for governor.
“After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, I knew that there was really no option. I’ve decided to run for Congress again,” Cawthorn told Fox News. “I want to make sure [the people of Florida] have amazing representation in Washington, D.C., because I know exactly what happens in the swamp.”
The former Congressman also said his experience with hurricane relief in the district, which includes Naples, Cape Coral, Ft. Myers and Marco Island, as well as seeing the community come together also played a part in his decision to run.
Cawthorn burst onto the national stage in 2020 as one of the youngest Republicans ever elected to Congress, winning his North Carolina seat at just 25 years old. He quickly became a symbol of youthful conservative energy and unapologetic defiance of the Washington establishment.
But his meteoric rise ran into turbulence during his lone term. In early 2022, he alleged that some D.C. elites had invited him to a cocaine-fueled “orgy,” a claim that drew sharp criticism from GOP leadership. Weeks later, police body camera footage showed him being pulled over while driving a car he mistakenly believed he owned, and he was also cited for bringing a firearm through airport security — his second such incident in less than a year.
Republican leadership, once supportive, gradually distanced themselves. The controversies overshadowed his legislative work and contributed to his loss in the 2022 Republican primary.
As for the scandals and legal trouble Cawthorn faced during his term, he told Fox News he was “railroaded out of Washington, D.C., by the radical left and members of [his] own party” for telling “the truth” about the city.
“You can start looking at things that happened months after I left, and I think it proves the things I was talking about,” Cawthorn told Fox. “There’s a lot of people in Washington, D.C., who enjoy just having talking points” that members have used for “decades and decades.”
