Cawthorn
Originally published in The Western Carolinian on Nov. 4, 2020.
Candidate Madison Cawthorn’s (R) clash with opponent Moe Davis (D) concluded in his favor on Tuesday, Nov. 3, winning 54.52 percent of votes cast in North Carolina’s eleventh district, coming to a total of 243,898 votes, making him the youngest member of Congress.
In June, Cawthorn received 30,444 votes, or 65.8 percent, across the district, beating President Donald Trump’s preferred candidate Lynda Bennett in a runoff election where she gathered a total of 15,806 votes.
According to FiveThirtyEight, Cawthorn polled 2–5 points above Davis in July and August but slowly trailed behind him by 3–4 points in September and October. In the end, Cawthorn was able to win all counties in the district except Buncombe, where Davis received 58 percent of votes. Overall, Davis won 42.36 percent of the district, totaling 189,516 votes.
“I’m grateful to over 1,000 volunteers who worked tirelessly to help me try to bring better days to Western North Carolina. I’ll be forever grateful for their support. But the voters have spoken and while I’m disappointed, I respect their decision. We live in a divided America and a divided Western North Carolina. It is now up to those elected to find a way to heal the divisions, seek common ground and work together to reduce poverty, increase access to healthcare and protect our precious environment. There is a lot of work to do. We are here to help.”
An hour later, Cawthorn released an acceptance statement via Twitter.
From the bottom of my heart, Thank you. All glory goes to God and I am excited to serve each and every member of this district. Thank you! pic.twitter.com/oFnizpzqVa
— Madison Cawthorn (@CawthornforNC) November 4, 2020
A visualization of the results can be viewed below.
