A young North Carolina Republican has defeated President Trump’s pick to replace his White House chief of staff in the House.
Madison Cawthorn, 24, won Tuesday’s GOP primary run-off to contest North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District in November. Winning the Western North Carolina district, heavily gerrymandered since 2013, would make Cawthorn the first 25-year-old to be seated in the House since the mid-1970s, though the real estate investor won’t reach that constitutionally mandated age until his birthday on Aug. 1.
The minimum age to be a House member is 25, under the Constitution.
Cawthorn used to work for White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and was planning on attending the U.S. Naval Academy before he was partially paralyzed in a 2014 car crash at age 18.
Meadows, former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, announced last December he wouldn’t seek another term after first being elected in 2012. A longtime Trump ally, he formally joined the administration in March. Both he and the president endorsed Haywood County Republican Party Chairwoman Lynda Bennett, 62, ahead of the race.
Cawthorn and Bennett forced a June run-off after neither earned at least 30% of the vote in their March primary.
Cawthorn received 65.9% support to Bennett’s 34.1% Tuesday night, with all 46,324 ballots counted.
