Cawthorn concedes in N.C. race

Kentucky, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Idaho also hold primaries

WASHINGTON — Firstterm U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn conceded his Republican primary race Tuesday to state Sen. Chuck Edwards.

Cawthorn called Edwards to concede the 11th Congressional District primary, Cawthorn campaign spokesperson Luke Ball told reporters.

On Tuesday, the 26-yearold conservative North Carolina firebrand left his election night party early. The Associated Press later called the race for Edwards. Cawthorn had vaulted to national prominence after winning the mountain-area seat in 2020 at age 25.

Edwards is fast-food franchise owner who advances to the November election against Democrat Jasmine Beach- Ferrara, who won Tuesday’s six-candidate Democratic primary.

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, who endorsed Edwards, said Cawthorn was an embarrassment to his constituents.

“Republicans chose Chuck Edwards tonight because he is the embodiment of mountain values who will fight for them every single day in Congress with honor and integrity,” Tillis said in a news release.

Cawthorn faced negative publicity for speeding and gun violations, as well as for calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug.” He also infuriated fellow Republicans in Congress when he alleged on a podcast that he had been invited to an orgy in Washington.

And his initial decision to run for reelection elsewhere — only to switch back to the 11th District — didn’t sit well with many locals.

Within days of taking office in early 2021, Cawthorn spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally questioning Joe Biden’s presidential election victory that preceded the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

KENTUCKY

Other House election results came in throughout the country.

A Republican congressman whom former President Donald Trump once called a “third rate Grandstander” and a “disaster” for Kentucky coasted to victory Tuesday in his primary election.

Rep. Thomas Massie had angered Trump by trying to obstruct a massive covid-19 relief package in 2020 when he was in the White House. Trump took to Twitter to urge GOP leaders to “throw Massie out of Republican Party!”

The bill passed, and Trump endorsed Massie earlier this month.

Massie’s primary was among the first congressional races to be called during Tuesday’s primary elections in Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon, Idaho and Pennsylvania.

Clay Aiken won the affection of TV viewers across the U.S. in 2003 as the runner-up in the hit reality show “American Idol.” His effort this year to win a Democratic primary in a U.S. House race from North Carolina came up shorter.

Aiken, who lost a congressional election in 2014, was defeated on Tuesday by state Sen. Valerie Foushee. He finished a distant third.

Foushee benefited from big super PAC spending on her behalf. One associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent $2.1 million on ads supporting her candidacy, while a second group financed by cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried spent $1 million.

Morgan McGarvey, the top Democrat in the Kentucky Senate, defeated state Rep. Attica Scott, a former Louisville council member.

McGarvey held a big fundraising advantage and an endorsement from incumbent U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, the House Budget Committee chair who is retiring after 15 years in the seat.

U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, a moderate Oregon Democrat, has likened Trump’s second impeachment trial to a “lynching,” voted against Nancy Pelosi for House speaker in 2019, and helped contribute to the collapse of President Joe Biden’s social spending agenda with his opposition to parts of it.

Despite that, Schrader, a seven-term congressman, won Biden’s endorsement ahead of Tuesday’s primary in his newly redrawn district. The district is slightly less Democratic than before and contains only about half of the voters who previously elected him to Congress.

Progressive challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner has the backing of the local Democratic parties in all four counties covered by the seat. If she wins, she could face a tough general election campaign against the Republican victor.

Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho faced conservative attorney Bryan Smith on the ballot in 2014 and won by more than 20 percentage points. This time could be different.

Simpson has inflamed some hard-line conservatives because he supported an investigation into the origins of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters. He also called Trump “unfit to be president” back in 2016.

PENNSYLVANIA

Meanwhile, Doug Mastriano won the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania governor on Tuesday, beating eight other candidates.

Mastriano, a retired U.S. Army colonel and state senator since 2019 who was endorsed by Trump, will face Democrat Josh Shapiro in the November election.

Mastriano beat a number of Republican rivals who outspent him on ads and campaigning and he suggested that he can again win a fall election where he will be outspent.

“We had the hardest-working campaign in this primary,” Mastriano told a cheering crowd in a Chambersburg event hall. “We’re going to have the hardest-working campaign in the general election.”

Democrats, meanwhile, were united behind Shapiro, the state’s two-term elected attorney general. Shapiro was uncontested on the primary ballot after wrapping up the endorsement of the state party and its top allies, including the AFL-CIO, and raising more than $20 million since early 2021.