Cawthorn wins NC-11 Congressional Race

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 the March primary, Bennett won the district with 20,606 votes, and Cawthorn followed her at 18,481 votes with 10 other candidates behind them. This resulted in her receiving 22.7 percent of the required 30 that would have eliminated the possibility of a runoff.

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.

On Tuesday, Nov. 3, at 9:58 p.m., Davis posted a statement via his website conceding the election.

“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.

A visualization of the results can be viewed below.