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      In Madison Cawthorn’s District, Strong Opinions of Him, For and Against

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      The right-wing firebrand is counting on Republican primary voters to look past his bad press. Opponents are counting on them to lose patience with him.HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — When Representative Madison Cawthorn’s name comes up in this city of 14,000, where he was born and raised and it is not difficult to bump into someone who knew him from his home-schooling days, there tends to be a visceral reaction.There are sighs from Republicans who elected him to his first term in November 2020 and met his meteoric rise in Washington with the praise and excitement reserved for a hometown hero — only to be disappointed by his behavior and bad press ever since.There are groans and looks of utter disgust from people with Democratic and independent leanings — some of whom have chosen to cast a ballot in a Republican primary for the first time in hopes of removing him from office.And there are eye-rolls and shrugs from his die-hard supporters, “America First” conservatives after the fashion of Donald J. Trump, who chalk up Mr. Cawthorn’s controversies to youthful indiscretion and instead reserve their opprobrium for the liberal media, Democrats, his Republican opponents and political groups with deep pockets.“I don’t care what he’s done,” said Moiena Gilbert, 77, a retired certified nursing assistant who pulled up in an old Ford pickup to cast an early vote this week at Henderson County’s Board of Elections. “I am going to vote for the man.”What there is not a lot of is indifference. In this southwestern corner of the state, a largely working-class and Republican stronghold set against the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains, it seems as if nearly everyone has made up his or her mind on the young firebrand once seen as the future of the Republican Party.Representative Madison Cawthorn at a rally hosted by former President Donald J. Trump in Selma, N.C., last month.Veasey Conway for The New York TimesIn interviews with more than 30 voters in Mr. Cawthorn’s 11th Congressional District, including nearly two dozen registered Republicans, it was clear that his support had weakened, even among hard-right Trump followers who said Mr. Cawthorn’s immaturity and lack of focus on his constituents had led them to disregard his endorsement by the former president and give one of his rivals their vote.Mr. Cawthorn needs to garner only 30 percent of the vote on Tuesday to avoid a runoff in a crowded field split among seven other challengers. They are led by Chuck Edwards, a state senator who has the endorsements of most members of the Legislature from his district, and Michele Woodhouse, the elected Republican chair of Mr. Cawthorn’s district who once was among his staunch supporters.Whether Mr. Cawthorn can dodge a runoff has been a constant source of debate in his hometown among friends, co-workers and in Christian circles.Understand the Pennsylvania Primary ElectionThe crucial swing state will hold its primary on May 17, with key races for a U.S. Senate seat and the governorship.Hard-Liners Gain: Republican voters appear to be rallying behind far-right candidates in two pivotal races, worrying both parties about what that could mean in November.G.O.P. Senate Race: Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator, is making a surprise late surge against big-spending rivals, Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.Democratic Senate Race: Representative Conor Lamb had all the makings of a front-runner. It hasn’t worked out that way.Abortion Battleground: Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states where abortion access hangs in the balance with midterm elections this year.Electability Concerns: Starting with Pennsylvania, the coming weeks will offer a window into the mood of Democratic voters who are deeply worried about a challenging midterm campaign environment.“I think there is a lot of support for Madison — they just may be afraid to tell you,” said one Baptist deacon leaving the Bethany Bible Church after a Wednesday night Bible study.Chip Worrell, 62, a charter member of the same church and a woodworker who helped erect its building, disagreed.“I don’t think he is going to be re-elected,” he said.Mr. Cawthorn, 26, who was injured in a car crash at 18, has seldom been out of the headlines since making his first run for Congress in 2020, when it emerged that he had made up parts of his autobiography. He falsely claimed his injuries had kept him from attending the Naval Academy, but admitted in court that it had already rejected him. Young women at the conservative Christian college he attended before dropping out accused him of sexual harassment.Elected in 2020 as the youngest member ever to serve in the House, he helped spread Mr. Trump’s stolen-election lies and aligned himself with other incendiary far-right representatives, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.But his re-election campaign has been marred by a seemingly endless series of embarrassing reports — beginning when he claimed that people he “looked up to” in Washington had invited him to orgies and used cocaine. (The remark drew a scolding from the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy.)The revelations ranged from traffic violations, like driving with a revoked license, to two incidents in which he brought a loaded gun to an airport. Politico published photos of Mr. Cawthorn in lingerie. The Washington Examiner reported his involvement in a cryptocurrency scheme and suggested it may have violated federal insider trading laws. And nude photos and videos have circulated showing him in sexually suggestive antics, in what appeared to be attempts to raise questions about Mr. Cawthorn’s sexuality.Mr. Cawthorn’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Writing on Twitter, he told supporters that he and a friend had simply been joking around crassly.“I told you there would be a drip drip campaign,” he wrote. “Blackmail won’t win. We will.”Democrats have criticized some of the attacks for stirring homophobia. Supporters in Mr. Cawthorn’s district see the leaks as the work of his opponents or of G.O.P. leaders like Mr. McCarthy.But a super PAC created to oust Mr. Cawthorn, which has held itself out as a clearinghouse of damaging information about him, said the tips it has received have largely come from Mr. Cawthorn’s former aides and supporters.“From the very start, we have been focused on firing Cawthorn, but firing him in a way that was factual and honest,” said David Wheeler, a Democrat who co-founded the group, American Muckrakers Inc., with Mr. Cawthorn’s 2020 Democratic opponent, Moe Davis.Candidates for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional district including Madison Cawthorn, right, debating in Flat Rock in March.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesIn Henderson, Transylvania and Haywood counties, many voters recalled how Mr. Cawthorn won the seat — replacing Mark Meadows, who became chief of staff in the Trump White House — by modeling himself after Mr. Trump.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? 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      Republican Madison Cawthorn cited for carrying gun in his bag at airport

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      Republican Madison Cawthorn cited for carrying gun in his bag at airportNorth Carolina congressman faces misdemeanor criminal charge after gun spotted at security screening checkpoint The far-right North Carolina Republican congressman Madison Cawthorn is facing a misdemeanor criminal charge after police at an airport in his home state said they found a gun in his bag Tuesday.Police at Charlotte Douglas international airport handed Cawthorn, 26, a municipal citation accusing him of possessing a dangerous weapon on city property, officers said in a statement. Police didn’t arrest Cawthorn, instead essentially issuing him a ticket summoning him to return to court at a later date to answer to the weapon charge. They also confiscated the gun.Cawthorn, whom police described as “cooperative” with officers, didn’t immediately comment on his encounter with officers at the airport Tuesday.According to police, officers at the airport’s security screening checkpoint spotted a gun in a bag belonging to Cawthorn. The congressman was nearby and admitted that the gun was his.A municipal law in Charlotte, the largest city in North Carolina, prohibits people from possessing guns on airport and other property owned by the city government. Anyone convicted of the misdemeanor could get up to 120 days in jail and be fined by both the city government as well as the federal Transportation Security Administration.Cawthorn, who took office early last year, has often landed in controversy.The rightwing gadfly and supporter of Donald Trump riled up senior members of his Republican party over his claims of being invited to orgies and of having witnessed prominent figures using cocaine in Washington DC.Cawthorn has also accumulated a number of speeding tickets across multiple states in recent years, including a charge that he drove despite having his license revoked in a county west of Charlotte.Tuesday was not the first time law enforcement officials have reportedly found a gun on Cawthorn at an airport. TSA agents at the regional airport in Cawthorn’s hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, seized a pistol from his bag in February 2021.He was not charged criminally in that case.TopicsNorth CarolinaRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Mark Meadows is still registered to vote in South Carolina and Virginia, officials say

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      Mark Meadows is still registered to vote in South Carolina and Virginia, officials sayDonald Trump’s former chief of staff was removed from voter rolls in North Carolina earlier this month Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump who was removed from North Carolina voter rolls earlier this month, is still a registered voter in two other states, according to officials.Chris Whitmire, a spokesperson for the South Carolina elections commission, said the former Republican congressman and his wife registered as voters in the state in March.“That’s when he became active,” Whitmire said, noting that neither Meadows had yet cast a vote in the state. “From our perspective, it just looks like any new South Carolina voter.”Ginni Thomas urged Trump’s chief of staff to overturn election resultsRead moreThe South Carolina registration was first reported by the Washington Post, which noted that Meadows had been a registered voter simultaneously in three states – the Carolinas and Virginia – until North Carolina removed him from its rolls earlier this month. Meadows remains a registered Virginia voter, the paper reported.Mark and Debra Meadows bought a home on Lake Keowee for $1.6m in July, according to records for the property, which was listed on their South Carolina voter registration records.The former North Carolina congressman appeared in South Carolina earlier this week with members of the state legislature’s newly formed Freedom Caucus, an offshoot of a conservative group Meadows helped found in the US House.A representative for Meadows declined to comment on the South Carolina voter registration.Last month, the office of the North Carolina attorney general, Josh Stein, asked the state bureau of investigation to look into Meadows’ voter registration in that state, which listed a home he never owned and may never have visited as his legal residence.Public records indicated Meadows had been registered to vote in Virginia and North Carolina, where he listed a Scaly Mountain mobile home he did not own as his legal residence weeks before casting an absentee 2020 presidential election ballot in the state.Trump, for whom Meadows was chief of staff at the time, won the battleground state by just over one percentage point.Marjorie Taylor Greene appears in court over attempt to bar her from CongressRead morePublic records indicate Meadows registered to vote in Alexandria, Virginia, about a year after he registered in Scaly Mountain and just weeks before Virginia’s high-profile governor’s election last fall.Meadows frequently raised the prospect of voter fraud before the 2020 presidential election as polls showed Trump trailing Joe Biden and in the months after Trump’s loss, to suggest Biden was not the legitimate winner.Judges, election officials in both parties and Trump’s own attorney general have concluded there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Experts point to isolated incidents of intentional or unintentional violations of voter laws in every election.Through the Electronic Registration Information Center, a consortium through which states exchange data about voter registration, Whitmire also said officials periodically pull voter lists and remove those who have more recently registered in a new state.TopicsMark MeadowsUS politicsNorth CarolinaSouth CarolinaVirginianewsReuse this content More

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      Only the Feds Can Disqualify Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene

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      The events of Jan. 6, 2021, are casting a long shadow over the midterm elections. Voters in North Carolina are seeking to bar Representative Madison Cawthorn from running for re-election to his House seat, and those in Georgia are trying to do the same to Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.These voters have filed complaints with state elections officials arguing that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies members of Congress who engage in insurrection from appearing on the congressional ballot. (Challenges to other elected officials have also begun involving other candidates.)But these challenges face an intractable problem: Only the federal government — not the states — can disqualify insurrectionists from congressional ballots. States cannot unilaterally create procedures, unless authorized by federal statute, to keep accused insurrectionists off the congressional ballot.If these members of Congress engaged in insurrection, then the U.S. House of Representatives may exclude them, or federal prosecutors may charge them with the federal crime of insurrection. But in light of an important 1869 judicial decision, the cases against Mr. Cawthorn and Ms. Greene — which are currently mired in both state and federal proceedings — cannot remove the candidates from the congressional ballot.The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 in the wake of the Civil War. Section 3 disqualified many former Confederates from holding certain public offices if they had taken an oath to support the U.S. Constitution but subsequently, as Section 3 declares, “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” Since 1868, the federal judiciary has had few occasions to interpret Section 3. As a result, the courts are largely in uncharted territory. Nevertheless, there is some important on-point precedent.An 1869 case concerning Hugh W. Sheffey is instructive for the Jan. 6 litigation and how courts might see things today. Mr. Sheffey took an oath to support the Constitution but later served as a member of the Confederate Virginia legislature, thereby actively supporting the Confederacy.After the war, he served as a state court judge. As Judge Sheffey, he presided over the trial and conviction of Caesar Griffin for shooting with an intent to kill. Later, Mr. Griffin challenged his conviction in federal court. He argued that Section 3 should have disqualified Mr. Sheffey from serving as judge. Griffin’s case, as it is known, was heard on appeal by the federal circuit court in Virginia. Salmon P. Chase, the chief justice of the United States and an appointee of President Abraham Lincoln, presided over the appeal. Chief Justice Chase ruled against Mr. Griffin, finding that Section 3 did not disqualify Judge Sheffey, despite the fact that he had taken an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and that it was “admitted,” as the case stated, that he later committed a Section 3 disqualifying offense.Chief Justice Chase reasoned “that legislation by Congress is necessary to give effect to” Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — and that “only” Congress can enact that legislation. Chief Justice Chase added that the exclusion of disqualified office holders “can only be provided for by Congress.” Congress must create the procedure that would determine if a defendant violated Section 3. Section 5 of the 14th Amendment emphasizes this principle: Congress, it states, “shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”In short, Griffin’s case teaches that in legal terms, Section 3 is not self-executing — that is, Congress must establish, or at least authorize, the process that affords accused insurrectionists an opportunity to contest the allegations brought against them.Mr. Cawthorn and Ms. Greene deny that they engaged in insurrection and oppose any assertion that they violated the law, which would include Section 3 disqualifying offenses. Moreover, in the Cawthorn and Greene cases, the plaintiffs have not pointed to any federal legislation authorizing the states to police Section 3 by disqualifying accused insurrectionists from the congressional ballot. Without federal authorization, state elections boards and even state courts could very well be powerless to make determinations about congressional candidates and Section 3.There may be another way, based on an existing statute, to disqualify a candidate from congressional ballots: the Insurrection Act of 1862. This legislation, which predated the 14th Amendment, mirrors one of the disqualifying offenses established in Section 3.The modern Insurrection Act is virtually unchanged from the statute Lincoln signed in 1862. If the Justice Department indicts and succeeds in convicting Mr. Cawthorn, Ms. Greene or others of insurrection under that act, then on that basis, state elections boards and state courts may remove these candidates from the congressional ballot.Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesBut so far, the Justice Department has not charged any congressional candidates with inciting or engaging in an insurrection or with any other disqualifying offenses. Most of the Jan. 6 federal charges have been based on things like property crimes or for obstructing official proceedings or assaulting officers rather than insurrection.If the Justice Department does not secure a conviction of a Section 3 disqualifying offense before the state ballot is printed (the primary in North Carolina is scheduled for May 17 and the one in Georgia for May 24), then, generally, state boards of election and even state courts will be powerless to remove otherwise eligible congressional candidates from the ballot.Recently, some scholars and advocates have contested Chief Justice Chase’s opinion in Griffin’s case as precluding the state challenges against Mr. Cawthorn and Ms. Greene. In their view, even in the absence of a federal statute, state election officials who conclude that a person engaged in insurrection may proceed to remove that candidate from the congressional ballot. There is no Supreme Court precedent that squarely forecloses that position. Moreover, Chief Justice Chase’s decision was not rendered by the United States Supreme Court, and so it is not controlling precedent. On Monday, a federal court in Georgia allowed the state court disqualification proceeding to go forward against Representative Greene. The federal judge did so without citing or distinguishing Griffin’s case.Still, we think the chief justice’s opinion is persuasive; we expect state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, will likely follow this historically entrenched position. Chief Justice Chase’s approach is the simplest path. If the courts find that Section 3 is not self-executing, there is no need for state election officials to decide far more politically charged questions about whether Mr. Cawthorn and Ms. Greene — and potentially, looking ahead to 2024, Donald Trump — engaged in insurrection.Congress has not authorized the states to enforce Section 3 by striking congressional candidates from the ballot. Thus, state courts and elections boards lack jurisdiction to exclude alleged insurrectionists from the congressional ballot. In such circumstances, state governments must let the people decide who will represent them in Congress.Josh Blackman is a law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston. S.B. Tillman is an associate professor at the Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology. They recently wrote a law review article about the application of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to President Trump.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Democratic Dollars Flow Once Again to Likely Lost Causes

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      New fund-raising figures show emerging Democratic stars like Marcus Flowers in Georgia and Gary Chambers Jr. in Louisiana, with no clear path to victory.Gary Chambers Jr. burst onto the national scene in 2020 with a viral video of him castigating the racism of the East Baton Rouge school district. Now, he has captured the hearts and wallets of young liberals with a video for his improbable Senate campaign that shows him smoking a large joint and calling for the legalization of marijuana.He has almost no paths to victory over a sitting Republican senator in a red state like Louisiana. But he has raised $1.2 million.The same most likely goes for the Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, a gay minister who has raised $1.4 million to oust Representative Madison Cawthorn, the far-right Republican, from his North Carolina seat. And for Marcus Flowers, a cowboy-hat-wearing veteran in Georgia who raised $2.4 million just in the first three months of the year to try to dislodge Marjorie Taylor Greene from a heavily Republican district.Every election year in recent cycles, celebrity Democratic candidates have emerged — either on the strength of their personalities, the notoriety of their Republican opponents or both — to rake in campaign cash, then lose impossible elections. Some Democrats say such races are draining money from more winnable campaigns, but the candidates insist that even in losing, they are helping the party by pulling voters in for statewide races, bolstering the Democratic brand and broadening the party’s appeal.“We are asking folks to join us, join us in winning this race and doing the organizing we need,” Ms. Beach-Ferrara said in an interview, “and to say we can’t look at the map and say we aren’t running there. When you do that you get a Madison Cawthorn in office.”As first-quarter fund-raising numbers roll in, the stars are emerging. The biggest bucks belong to incumbents. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a Republican widely viewed as vulnerable this year, was criticized six years ago for anemic fund-raising; this time around, he raised nearly $8.7 million in the first quarter. Senator Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat facing a difficult re-election, raised $13.6 million against the $5.2 million raised by his main Republican opponent, Herschel Walker.Competitive races are already awash in money. Representative Val Demings, Democrat of Florida, raised more than $10 million to challenge Senator Marco Rubio, who raised $5.8 million.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.Then there’s Mr. Flowers, whose $2.4 million haul in the first quarter easily topped Ms. Greene’s $1.1 million, in a Northwest Georgia district that has given Republicans 75 percent of the vote since it was created in 2012.Mr. Flowers has proved remarkably adept at raising small-dollar donations with a barrage of emails — sometimes multiple emails each day — that capitalize on the behavior of the far-right congresswoman he is running against. An Army veteran who served in combat, he has emphasized his military service, talking tough while attacking Ms. Greene’s sympathy for the Jan. 6 rioters and far-right conspiracy theories.Jon Soltz, the co-founder and chairman of VoteVets.org, a liberal veterans organization that gave Mr. Flowers the maximum allowable contribution, said support was not necessarily about winning the seat but holding Ms. Greene in check and using his run to elevate her profile as the face of the Republican Party in suburban districts that are more winnable.“She can’t be free to travel around the country and spew her lies and disinformation,” Mr. Soltz said. “We’re making her spend her money.”In the process, Mr. Flowers can build name recognition for future runs and might energize the Democrats who live in Northwest Georgia to come out and vote for him, Mr. Warnock and the Democratic candidate for governor, Stacey Abrams.The Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, a Democrat, is running against Representative Madison Cawthorn.Angeli Wright/Asheville Citizen-TimesMr. Cawthorn appeared at a rally with former President Donald J. Trump this month in Selma, N.C.Veasey Conway for The New York TimesMs. Beach-Ferrara is similarly buoyed by her opponent, Mr. Cawthorn, the young face of far-right conservatism in the Trump era. A married lesbian mother of three, Ms. Beach-Ferrara insists her unlikely life story will help her in a district where an influx of politically active outsiders in the Asheville area could change the region’s direction.North Carolina’s 11th House district, with new lines, is slightly less Republican than it was in 2020, when Mr. Cawthorn was first elected. She said Mr. Trump still would have won it by 10 percentage points but the state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, would have lost by only 4 points.Her advantage two years later comes from disenchantment with Mr. Cawthorn, whose antics — he has called Ukraine’s president a thug and most recently said his colleagues had invited him to cocaine-filled orgies — have prompted seven Republicans to challenge him in the upcoming primary.“As people walk away from Cawthorn, our job is to meet them,” she said, adding, “For those who don’t know what to make of a gay Christian minister, what is very clear with them is I’m being honest with them from the start.”In Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, Mr. Chambers does not have the villain that Democrats have made nationally of Ms. Greene. His campaign is based on his irreverent appeal — an outspoken Black progressive voice willing to smoke weed in a commercial, burn a Confederate flag and call white school board members racist to their faces for defending a school named after Robert E. Lee.He raised $800,000 in the first three months of the year from 18,500 donors. The average contribution was $41, many of those small-dollar donors youthful and excited, the campaign said.Critics say such campaigns are more about building the brand of Democratic consultants than making a play for a Senate seat. The man who created Mr. Chambers’s marijuana and Confederate flag ads, Erick Sanchez, helped run Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign and also hawks “Fouch on the Couch” throw pillows of Dr. Anthony Fauci for $40 a pop.But Randy Jones, one of Mr. Chambers’s campaign chiefs, said the candidate should not be discounted. Mr. Chambers, he said, is taking a page from Ms. Abrams, who energized Georgia voters of color, urban liberals and the scatterings of rural Democrats to nearly win the governorship four years ago, build a political organization and set herself up for a rematch this year with the Republican governor, Brian Kemp.Mr. Jones ran the campaign of another celebrity Democrat, Richard Ojeda of West Virginia, whose House campaign in 2018 was instructive in other ways. Mr. Ojeda, a trash-talking Bronze Star winner, sought to remake his party’s image in his emerging Republican stronghold as more muscular and more working class. He raised nearly $3 million, then lost by nearly 13 percentage points.Richard Ojeda campaigning in Logan, W.Va., in 2018.Andrew Spear for The New York TimesEmbittered by the experience, Mr. Ojeda moved to North Carolina to leave a home state he describes with the same epithet Mr. Trump used for developing countries. He uses his political notoriety to lift his group No Dem Left Behind, which promotes candidates in rural Republican areas, as he builds a new house.Even as he defended his campaign, Mr. Ojeda criticizes the party in ways that echo criticism of his own effort. Democrats across the country dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the Senate campaigns of Jaime Harrison in South Carolina and Amy McGrath in Kentucky, when the money could have been spent on more winnable local races, he said. He insisted he could have won if Mr. Trump hadn’t come to his corner of West Virginia twice.But he also sees no point in ever trying again in a state so thoroughly Republican in the Trump era.“West Virginia is going to have to burn to the ground before it will ever rise from the ashes — that’s it,” Mr. Ojeda said. “In West Virginia, all you can do as a Democrat is stand up, fight the battle so it’s recorded and say, ‘You guys are full of’” it. More

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      Mark Meadows removed from North Carolina voter roll amid fraud inquiry

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      Mark Meadows removed from North Carolina voter roll amid fraud inquiryState is investigating whether Trump’s ex-chief of staff committed fraud by registering to vote at residence he never owned or lived in Donald Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been removed from the electoral roll in North Carolina, amid a criminal inquiry into whether he committed election fraud by registering to vote at a residence he never owned or lived in.Melanie Thibault, director of the Macon county board of elections, confirmed her decision to the Asheville Citizen Times, which reported that the registration for Meadows’s wife, Debra, remained active.Before working for Trump, Meadows was a congressman from North Carolina.According to the New Yorker, which reported the story last month, Meadows registered as his address a rented mobile home, in Scaly Mountain, which he reportedly had never visited.He voted from there as an absentee in the 2020 presidential election. He has subsequently registered to vote in Virginia.According to neighbors in Scaly Mountain and the former owner of the property, Debra Meadows rented and stayed at the mobile home for “a few nights” but her husband was never seen there.Thibault said Meadows’s removal from the electoral roll was standard procedure under a statute that says a person who votes in another state loses their registration in North Carolina.Meadows, who with his wife owns a condo in Virginia, reportedly voted in that state in 2021, triggering the decision to remove him from the rolls.The Citizen reported that the North Carolina state bureau of investigation was continuing its inquiry into possible voter fraud by Meadows, a fierce Trump loyalist who has never commented on the story.The bureau, the newspaper said, would not comment on whether Meadows’s removal from the North Carolina roll would affect its investigation.Meadows has commented, extensively, on the dangers of voter fraud and its supposed role in Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.He addressed the subject at length in his memoir, The Chief’s Chief, a book which caused huge controversy when it revealed that Trump tested positive then negative for Covid before his first debate against Joe Biden, results which Meadows did not disclose.“President Trump had alerted us to the strong possibility that there would be fraud connected to these mail-in ballots, and we wanted to be on the lookout for it,” Meadows wrote in the book, adding: “We wanted to approach any potential challenges with the utmost seriousness.”The Trump campaign lost the overwhelming majority of cases alleging voter fraud in court. Trump’s lie about mass voter fraud in Biden’s win also fueled the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, in an attempt to stop certification of electoral college results.In his book, Meadows called the Capitol attack “shameful” and “the regrettable actions of a small group of people”.About 800 people, however, have been charged, with offences including seditious conspiracy.Meadows also claimed “millions” of Americans had “genuine concerns” about voter fraud.Meadows’s own legal jeopardy is not confined to North Carolina. The House committee investigating the attack has referred him to the Department of Justice for a possible charge of criminal contempt of Congress.TopicsMark MeadowsUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationNorth CarolinanewsReuse this content More

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      Mark Meadows Is Taken Off North Carolina Voter Roll Amid Fraud Inquiry

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      The state is investigating whether Mr. Meadows cast a legal vote in 2020, after reports questioned if he lived at the address listed on his voter registration.Mark Meadows, a former chief of staff in the Trump White House, has been removed from the voter rolls in North Carolina as officials investigate whether he fraudulently registered to vote and cast a ballot in the state during the 2020 presidential election, according to a local election official.Mr. Meadows, who helped amplify former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, was “administratively removed” from the poll book by the Macon County Board of Elections on Monday “after documentation indicated he lived in Virginia and last voted in the 2021 election there,” Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for the North Carolina Board of Elections, said in a statement.Mr. Meadows represented North Carolina in Congress until March 2020, when he went to work in the White House. Months later, Mr. Meadows and his wife, Debra, registered to vote using the address of a modest, three-bedroom mobile home with a rusted roof in Scaly Mountain, N.C.On the voter registration application that Mr. Meadows submitted on Sept. 19, 2020, he stated that he intended to move into the home the following day.And in November, he voted absentee by mail from that address, according to state records.Last month, a report in The New Yorker cast doubt on whether Mr. Meadows had ever lived — or even spent the night — at the home.Mr. Meadows did not immediately respond to telephone and text messages on Wednesday afternoon. A spokesman for Mr. Meadows, Ben Williamson, declined to comment.In 2021, Mr. Meadows registered to vote in Virginia, where he and his wife own a condominium in the Washington suburbs, ahead of that state’s contentious election for governor. Property records show that Mr. and Ms. Meadows bought the unit in July 2017.The inquiry into Mr. Meadows’s voting activity in North Carolina remains open, according to Anjanette Grube, public information officer for the state’s Bureau of Investigation.Though documented cases of voter fraud are rare, Mr. Meadows and other Republicans have seized on the concept in order to claim, without evidence, that the results of last presidential election are illegitimate.During an August 2020 interview on CNN, Mr. Meadows warned of fraud in voting by mail. “Do you realize how inaccurate the voter rolls are, with just people just moving around, let alone the people that die off?” he told the host, Jake Tapper.When Mr. Tapper said there was no evidence of widespread vote fraud, Mr. Meadows replied, “There’s no evidence that there’s not, either. That’s the definition of fraud, Jake.”Reid J. Epstein More

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      Cawthorn Draws Criticism From Republicans Over Cocaine and Orgies Comments

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      For Mr. Cawthorn, a pro-Trump North Carolina congressman, youthful brashness that helped him win his seat now strikes some voters as recklessness. HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — In the era of Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party — when making falsehoods about an election isn’t disqualifying, when heckling a president at the State of the Union is no big deal, when attending an event tied to white supremacists doesn’t lead to exile — it may still be possible for a hard-right member of Congress to go too far.That is the object lesson of Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, the House’s youngest member, whose bid for a second term is in jeopardy after a series of incendiary statements and personal foibles have soured many former supporters.“I voted for Madison, but I think I’ll pass now because of integrity issues,’’ said John Harper, a retired furniture finisher in Franklin, N.C., at a Republican event in Mr. Cawthorn’s district last week. “I was fooled last time. I won’t be fooled again.”Mr. Cawthorn, 26, called President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine “a thug” and his country “incredibly evil” as Russian tanks rolled in. The congressman has made headlines for bringing a knife to a school board meeting and bringing a gun through airport security. Mr. Cawthorn, who has used a wheelchair since being injured in an automobile accident when he was 18, was charged this month with driving with a revoked license. He has a May court date on the misdemeanor count that carries jail time. Unlike some other far-right members of Congress — including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, both of whom booed President Biden during his State of the Union speech — Mr. Cawthorn is also saddled with a yearslong series of hyperbolic claims about his personal life, raising questions about his honesty.One of those claims finally set off his fellow House Republicans this week: a bizarre assertion he made on a conservative YouTube channel that people he “looked up to” in Washington — presumably Republican lawmakers — invited him to orgies and used cocaine. On Tuesday, upset House Republicans at a closed-door meeting questioned the remarks, and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, told colleagues that he would speak to Mr. Cawthorn. On Wednesday, he did so. Afterward, Mr. McCarthy told reporters that Mr. Cawthorn admitted the allegations were untrue. The minority leader said that he told the freshman congressman that he had lost trust in him and that he needed to turn his life around. Mr. McCarthy, who aspires to be House speaker, acted only after declining to discipline other members for norm-shattering behavior and accusations. They include Representatives Paul Gosar of Arizona, who posted an animated video showing him killing a Democratic congresswoman, and Matt Gaetz of Florida, who is under federal investigation for allegations of sex trafficking. Although Mr. McCarthy recently condemned Ms. Taylor Greene for an appearance at a conference organized by a white supremacist, he refused last year to back her removal from committees for endorsing violent behavior and spreading bigoted conspiracy theories. Well before Mr. Cawthorn’s latest episode, his youthful brashness — which once appealed to the conservative older voters of far-west North Carolina — struck some as reckless and immature. Interviews last week with Republican voters and party leaders in his district — a largely working-class region set amid the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains — suggested that his impetuousness is working against him.“People of western North Carolina are tired of the antics,’’ said Michele Woodhouse, the elected Republican chair of Mr. Cawthorn’s district and a former staunch supporter. Now she is running against him in the primary in May.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.Mr. Cawthorn faces a total of seven Republican challengers, a field that includes other former supporters, who accuse him of neglecting constituents while chasing Instagram followers with fiery rhetoric and pursuing donors with expensive travel outside the state.In the past, North Carolina’s Republican officials largely held their tongues about Mr. Cawthorn. His comments about Ukraine ushered in more open criticism, including from Senator Thom Tillis and the State House speaker, Tim Moore, who called him “reckless” in The News & Observer. The congressman, who declined repeated requests for an interview, seemed to acknowledge some of the doubts about him at a debate in Henderson County on Saturday. “I’ll be the first to admit, 26 years old, I don’t have all the wisdom in the world,’’ he told the crowd. “Obviously when it comes to driving, I’ve got some work to do.’’The audience, largely voters with gray hair, laughed, and some applauded.The audience listens during the primary debate at Blue Ridge Community College in Flat Rock, N.C., on Saturday.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesLuke Ball, a spokesman for Mr. Cawthorn, predicted that Mr. Cawthorn would easily win the primary and suggested that voters at the district gatherings were unrepresentative. “Some attending local G.O.P. events are affiliated with Congressman Cawthorn’s primary opponents and have welcomed the opportunity to slight Mr. Cawthorn’s service and candidacy,’’ Mr. Ball said.Jennifer Cook, a nurse in Macon County, attended one such gathering to support her husband, who is running for sheriff. She said she voted for Mr. Cawthorn in 2020 but has no plans to do it again. “Madison has disappointed me in his actions on many things since he was elected,’’ Ms. Cook said. “I think driving without a license is saying, ‘I can do what I want, the law doesn’t pertain to me.’ That’s not the kind of person I want representing me.’’Mr. Cawthorn has the advantage of broad name recognition in a field of challengers who, with a couple of exceptions, have raised little money needed to become better known. He also has the endorsement of Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Cawthorn identified on Saturday as “a man who mentors me.”An internal poll of likely Republican voters this month for a Cawthorn rival showed the congressman leading the field with 52 percent and 17 percent undecided. “Cawthorn is right on the bubble of the 50 percent mark; incumbents who slip below that during the campaign are in danger,’’ wrote Glen Bolger, a top Republican pollster who conducted the poll.Mr. Cawthorn did himself no favors last year when he announced he would run in a new district near Charlotte, the state’s largest city. Political insiders speculated that he sought a higher profile in a major media market ahead of an eventual statewide run. But then legal challenges led to a redrawn state congressional map, and Mr. Cawthorn’s planned new district tilted Democratic. So he returned home to his old district, where viable contenders had joined the race in his absence.“Had he not flirted with another district, he wouldn’t be in this situation, where there’s a question of whether he’ll win this primary,’’ said Christopher Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C. “It’s the thing that opened the door for the field to expand.”It’s unclear if Mr. Cawthorn’s temporary desertion has penetrated to average voters, even if it angers party officials. “I believe he probably has lost most of the local-level Republican movers and shakers,’’ said David Baker, a voter who attended a recent Republican convention in Jackson County. But Mr. Baker, an employee benefits expert, said rank-and-file Republicans like himself still support Mr. Cawthorn because of his “clarity on those issues that were so important to Trump.”Mr. Cawthorn was raised in Hendersonville, N.C., a small community where he was home-schooled. His meteoric rise began with his defeat of a primary candidate handpicked to fill the seat held by former Representative Mark Meadows, who was appointed Mr. Trump’s White House chief of staff.During the 2020 campaign, a group of alumni of Patrick Henry College, which Mr. Cawthorn briefly attended, accused him of “sexually predatory behavior,’’ which he denied. He suggested during the campaign that his 2014 auto accident had “derailed” his plans to attend the Naval Academy. Reporting showed that his Annapolis application had already been rejected before the crash. Mr. Cawthorn amplified false accusations of election fraud at the Jan. 6 rally in Washington that preceded the riot at the Capitol.Jim Bourg/ReutersDays after being sworn in, Mr. Cawthorn addressed the rally behind the White House on Jan. 6 that preceded the violent siege of the Capitol. He amplified false conspiracies of fraud in the presidential election. Days earlier, he had tweeted, “It’s time to fight.’’ In the aftermath of the riot, he denounced the violence, writing in a tweet that “it wasn’t patriotism it was thuggery.”This year, a group of North Carolina voters sought to have Mr. Cawthorn disqualified from re-election because of his participation in an “insurrection.” A judge blocked the effort.George Erwin, a retired county sheriff who organized a group of law enforcement officials to endorse Mr. Cawthorn in 2020, said he no longer backed him, in part because of his actions around Jan. 6.“The words that come out of his mouth incite people,’’ said Mr. Erwin, who is now supporting a Cawthorn challenger, Rod Honeycutt, a retired Army colonel. “He says he backs the blue, but what he does is, he backs them in a corner with his antics. If you really want to back the blue, obey the law.”The biggest primary threat to Mr. Cawthorn may come from a state senator, Chuck Edwards, who has the endorsements of most members of the state legislature in the district.State Senator Chuck Edwards, who owns several McDonald’s franchises, may be the biggest primary threat to Mr. Cawthorn.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesMichele Woodhouse, a former supporter of Mr. Cawthorn, is now running against him in the Republican primary.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesMr. Edwards, the owner of several McDonald’s franchises, had more than $300,000 in his campaign account at the end of last year, more than Mr. Cawthorn reported. Mr. Cawthorn has been one of the House’s top fund-raisers, pulling in $2.8 million in 2021 thanks to a national donor base, but he has also spent prodigiously, with more than half going toward fund-raising. He spent $28,000 on campaign air travel and $11,000 at a Waldorf Astoria hotel in Orlando, according to an analysis by The Asheville Citizen Times.At the debate, Mr. Edwards confined his attacks to a resolution Mr. Cawthorn introduced in Washington: a 52-point plan calling for a one-third reduction in federal spending, as well as reforming Social Security by “incentivizing people to work and get off entitlement programs.’’“I would not cut Social Security benefits by a third, as is suggested in our congressman’s garbled 52-point plan for America,’’ Mr. Edwards said. “Go read it,’’ he told the audience. “It would require you to go back to work to collect your Social Security.”Mr. Cawthorn responded that he wants to cut “wasteful” spending but not Social Security. Mr. Cawthorn, seated at the far-right of the table, at a debate last Saturday in Flat Rock, N.C., with seven Republican rivals.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesTo prevail in the primary on May 17, a candidate must win with more than 30 percent of the vote; if not, the top two finishers will face a runoff. There is broad speculation over whether Mr. Cawthorn, even as the front-runner, can surpass 30 percent. Still, whether his rivals can pull down his support to such a threshold remains to be seen. The leading Democrat in the race, Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, is considered a long shot in a district that Mr. Trump won by 10 percentage points.Chelsea Walsh, a life insurance agent who volunteered for Mr. Cawthorn in 2020 but said she is open to other candidates now, predicted a runoff between Mr. Cawthorn and Mr. Edwards.“If I had to pick, I would say Madison is still the front-runner,’’ she said. “But he has his work cut out for him.”Annie Karni More