Madison Cawthorn Has Officially Become a Florida Man

Former Rep. Madison Cawthorn, whose brief but eventful congressional career ended this month, has officially ditched the North Carolina mountains for Florida. 

While the House Republican caucus imploded last week over the battle for speaker of the House, Cawthorn threw his now-meaningless support behind Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, who ran as an alternative candidate to eventual victor Kevin McCarthy. While elaborating on his support for Donalds, Cawthorn confirmed he’d moved to Florida. 

“There are many reasons I moved to Florida. One of the big contributing factors is that I know Byron Donalds is a leader in this state,” Cawthorn wrote on Instagram. “That means this state will always be on offense to safeguard our future. Byron for Speaker.”

Cawthorn was elected in 2020 as a hardline supporter of former President Donald Trump, and one of the youngest members of Congress in modern history. But he quickly torpedoed his own career with a series of scandals—multiple attempts to bring a loaded gun through airport security, his support of a sketchy cryptocurrency, and claims that members of Congress had invited him to orgies and that he’d watched his colleagues do coke.

After virtually the entire Republican establishment denounced Cawthorn, he lost his re-election bid in May to fellow Republican Chuck Edwards, who was sworn into Congress last week. 

After losing the primary, Cawthorn bought a million-dollar home in Cape Coral, Florida in August, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported in November. But even though he posted a video of himself surveying the damage of Hurricane Ian from a helicopter in southwest Florida in October, a spokesperson told the Raleigh News & Observer in November—while Cawthorn was still representing North Carolinians—that where Cawthorn was living was “personal.” 

Even after moving, Cawthorn still has business to attend to in North Carolina—namely, a court date in Mecklenburg County for attempting to bring a gun through the Charlotte airport and another next month for speeding in Polk County, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported in November. 

The House Ethics Committee last month ordered Cawthorn to give $15,000 to charity, after it found “substantial evidence” that he improperly promoted the Let’s Go Brandon cryptocurrency while serving in Congress. Cawthorn’s own lawyers, who represented him against a challenge to his eligibility for Congress focused on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, also sued him last month for failing to pay his legal bills. 

Cawthorn had vocally opposed McCarthy’s bid for the speakership, which the Republican leader finally sewed up early Saturday morning after four days and fifteen rounds of voting. Cawthorn even retweeted a post claiming that the “McCarthy machine stopped at nothing to take Patriot [Madison Cawthorn] out.” 

But on Sunday, following McCarthy’s election, Cawthorn posted a tweet commenting on either the state of things in Washington—or his new geographical surroundings: “The swamp is deep and REAL.”

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