Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who devoted much of his political machine to defeating freshman Representative Madison Cawthorn, celebrated his Republican primary defeat on Tuesday evening.
Mr Tillis had endorsed state Senator Chuck Edwards ahead of the primary and had aggressively targeted Mr Cawthorn. A super PAC affiliated with Mr Tillis spent $300,000 on an ad campaign entitled “Mr Cawthorn’s lies.” Early election results show Mr Edwards likely beat Mr Cawthorn in the state’s 11th district.
Mr Cawthorn, who won a special election to replace Representative Mark Meadows in 2020, faced numerous legal troubles, such as driving with a suspended license and trying to bring a gun onto his carry-on luggage at an airport twice. He also came under scrutiny for bringing a knife to a school.
Similarly, he also called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “a thug” and Ukraine’s government “incredibly corrupt and is incredibly evil and has been pushing woke ideologies.” He earned the ire of many House Republicans after he said members of Congress invited him to an orgy and did “a key bump of cocaine” in front of him.
Mr Tillis and Mr Cawthorn had clashed over the bipartisan infrastructure bill, particularly after Mr Cawthorn threated that he would “primary the hell “ out of anyone who voted for the bipartian infrastructure bill for which Mr Tillis voted and then touting the expansion of broadband to western North Carolina, which Mr Tillis criticised.
“Republicans chose @ChuckEdwards4NC tonight because he is the embodiment of Mountain values who will fight for them every single day in Congress with honor and integrity,” he tweeted.
Meanwhile, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a frequent critic of the pro-Donald Trump wing of the Republican Party, celebrated the loss. Mr Kinzinger quote-tweeted Representative Matt Gaetz telling people to vote for Mr Cawthorn.
“Didn’t work,” Mr Kinzinger tweeted.
