David Madison Cawthorn (born August 1, 1995) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for North Carolina's 11th congressional district from 2021 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, Cawthorn describes himself as a constitutional conservative.
After working as a staffer for U.S. Representative Mark Meadows, Cawthorn was elected to succeed Meadows in 2020 and became the first member of Congress born in the 1990s. His tenure was marked by various controversies, including allegations of insider trading, improper payments, bringing a handgun to an airport, and appearing in a leaked nude video. Cawthorn lost renomination in the 2022 Republican primary to Chuck Edwards, who won the general election. In 2026, Cawthorn ran for the U.S. House in Florida's 19th congressional district, and finished fourth in the Republican primary.
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Early life and education
Cawthorn was born in Asheville, North Carolina, to Priscilla and Roger Cawthorn. He was home-schooled in Hendersonville, North Carolina, through 12th grade, and played football with the Asheville Saints, a league that includes home-schooled high school students. As a teenager, he worked at a Chick-fil-A restaurant.
In 2014, at age 18, Cawthorn was seriously injured while returning from a spring break trip to Florida. He was riding as a passenger in a BMW X3 SUV near Daytona Beach, Florida, when his friend Bradley Ledford fell asleep at the wheel. The vehicle crashed into a concrete barrier while Cawthorn's feet were on the dashboard. In a 2017 speech, Cawthorn said that Ledford left him "to die in a fiery tomb", which Ledford has disputed. Ledford said in a sworn deposition for insurance litigation that he pulled an unconscious Cawthorn from the wrecked vehicle immediately after getting out himself; in Cawthorn's deposition, he stated that he had "no memory from the accident". In the same 2017 speech, Cawthorn stated that he was "declared dead on the scene" of the accident, but the official accident report listed him as "incapacitated". The injuries from the accident left Cawthorn partially paralyzed, requiring the use of a wheelchair. He said he accrued $3 million in medical debt during his recovery; he received that amount as settlement from an insurance company, as well as other payments, and as of February 2021 was seeking $30 million more.
Rep. Meadows had nominated Cawthorn to the United States Naval Academy in December 2013, but his application was rejected. Although this happened before his injury, he claimed in advertisements for his 2020 congressional campaign that the accident "derailed" his plans to attend the academy. Cawthorn had acknowledged in 2017 under oath that he had been turned down before the accident. When asked in 2020 about the discrepancy, he said, "I never said I was appointed or accepted to the academy, I knew that I'd only been nominated at that point. I fully expected to be accepted and to be appointed, but at that point I hadn't received it."
During the fall 2016 semester, Cawthorn attended Patrick Henry College, studying political science, but earned mostly D grades and dropped out. He said his grades were low primarily because his injuries had interfered with his ability to learn. Cawthorn said in a deposition, "You know, suffering from a brain injury after the accident definitely I think it slowed my brain down a little bit. Made me less intelligent. And the pain also made reading and studying very difficult." He also said he withdrew due to "heartbreak" after his fiancée broke up with him.
Early career
From January 2015 to August 2016, Cawthorn worked as a staff assistant in U.S. Representative Mark Meadows's district office. He told the Asheville Citizen-Times he worked there "full-time", but it was a part-time position.
Cawthorn is the owner and CEO of SPQR Holdings, LLC, a real estate investment firm in Hendersonville. The firm was started in August 2019 and reported no income; Cawthorn is its sole employee. As of August 2020, the company had been involved in only one real estate transaction, purchasing a 6-acre (2.4 ha) property for $20,000, in a foreclosure auction.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
In the March 2020 Republican primary for North Carolina's 11th congressional district, Cawthorn finished second behind Lynda Bennett, who had been endorsed both by President Donald Trump and Meadows, who had become White House Chief of Staff. But Bennett did not receive the required 30% of the vote to avoid a runoff and Cawthorn won the June runoff overwhelmingly. He was supported by many local leaders and endorsed by Mark Walker, the vice chairman of the House Republican Conference. His victory has been called an upset. Cawthorn benefited from false and misleading claims that Bennett was a "Never-Trumper".
In a July 2020 event at the Texas border, Cawthorn declared, without providing evidence, that there was "a large group of cartels, kidnapping our American children and then taking them to sell them on a slave market, a sex slave market".
During the 2020 general campaign, his Democratic opponent drew attention to a 2017 Cawthorn Instagram post with a picture of his visit to Adolf Hitler's vacation residence Eagle's Nest, which he said had been on his "bucket list for a while", generating allegations of far-right sympathies. He had referred to Hitler as "the Führer", which had been Hitler's official title, and called Hitler "a supreme evil". In response, Cawthorn called the allegations that he was a white supremacist ridiculous, saying that he "completely and wholeheartedly denounce[s] any kind of white nationalism, any kind of Nazism". The Anti-Defamation League's analyst Mark Pitcavage said he did not see much merit in the accusations against Cawthorn. Some Jewish residents of his congressional district expressed concern about the incident, including Esther Manheimer, mayor of Asheville, the district's largest city. Cawthorn deleted the Instagram post on August 10.
Cawthorn spoke on the third day of the 2020 Republican National Convention. During his election bid, Cawthorn's campaign created a website to criticize journalist Tom Fiedler, who had produced investigative pieces on Cawthorn and had written favorably about his opponent. The website accused Fiedler of leaving academia "to work for non-white males, like Cory Booker, who aims to ruin white males running for office." The sentence on the website was later modified to claim Fiedler is "an unapologetic defender of left-wing identity politics". Cawthorn released a statement saying he had intended "to condemn" such political opinion as being "dangerous and divisive" and said that he "condemned racism and identity politics throughout [his] campaign." Ben Mathis-Lilley, writing for Slate, said that Cawthorn's apology was "not an apology for attacking the journalist in question, Tom Fiedler, as a traitor to his race."
Tenure
The Washington Post reported that during his candidacy and time in Congress, Cawthorn became known for incendiary rhetoric and for promulgating conspiracy theories. He had said he intended to use his position to be a messenger rather than a legislator, writing to his colleagues, "I have built my staff around comms rather than legislation." Cawthorn subsequently closed all but one district office.
In December 2020, at a Turning Point USA conference in Florida, Cawthorn said that he would try to contest the 2020 presidential election results when Congress counted the Electoral College votes in January, citing fraud, though there was no evidence that fraud affected the election results. He subsequently used conspiracy theories about fraud to run advertisements and raise money for himself. He called on the TPUSA event's attendees to "lightly threaten" their representatives.
Cawthorn took his seat as a member of Congress at the start of the 117th Congress on January 3, 2021.
Before Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol on January 6, Cawthorn addressed the crowd and said, "this crowd has some fight." He voted not to certify the Electoral College results in Congress and called Republicans who voted to certify the results "spineless cowards". He repeated the false conspiracy theories that there was widespread fraud in the election. After the riots, Cawthorn denounced the violence and said, "The party as a whole should have been much more wise about their choice of words." He later attempted to blame the riots on a "Democratic machine" of "agitators strategically placed inside of this group", amid intensifying calls for his resignation for his part in stoking the riots.
On January 20, the day of Joe Biden's inauguration, Cawthorn was one of seventeen newly elected House Republicans to sign a letter congratulating him and expressing hope of bipartisan cooperation. On January 22, 2021, the government watchdog group Campaign for Accountability asked the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate Cawthorn's role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
On January 23, on CNN Newsroom, Pamela Brown asked Cawthorn about his views of the election results. He said, "You know, the Constitution allowed for us to be able to push back as much as we could and I did that to the amount of the constitutional limits that I had at my disposal. So now I would say that Joseph R. Biden is our president". According to Time, Cawthorn was "trying to have it both ways. One day, he's preaching about respecting the office of the Presidency and vowing to work across the aisle with Democratic colleagues. The next, he's trumpeting dangerous conspiracies to right-wing crowds and commentators."
Political positions
During his 2020 campaign, Cawthorn said that he would "like to be the face of the Republican Party when it comes to health care."
Cawthorn identifies as a constitutional conservative and describes his position on abortion rights as pro-life or anti-abortion. In 2021, he joined the House Freedom Caucus, a caucus of conservative House Republicans. He describes himself as "fiscally conservative", says his stance on immigration is "conservative", and supports legal gun ownership, opposing gun control legislation.
Cawthorn supports legal same-sex marriage, but opposes gender transition treatments for minors. He also supports removing Confederate statues because they commemorate secession from the United States, though in June 2021 he voted against a bill that would remove statues of white supremacists and Confederates from the United States Capitol. In 2022, Cawthorn voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation to codify same-sex marriage into federal law.
Cawthorn has said that climate change is "pretty minimal".
Cawthorn falsely asserted that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent, though he backtracked on the claim during a January 2021 CNN interview with Pamela Brown.
Cawthorn sponsored H.R. 6206, the American Tech Workforce Act of 2021, introduced by Representative Jim Banks. The legislation would establish a wage floor for the high-skill H-1B visa program, thereby significantly reducing employer dependence on the program. The bill would also eliminate the Optional Practical Training program that allows foreign graduates to stay and work in the United States.
Committee assignments
House Committee on Education and Labor
House Committee on Veterans' Affairs
Caucus memberships
Republican Study Committee
Freedom Caucus
Personal life
Cawthorn describes himself as a Christian. He has an older brother.
Cawthorn married Cristina Bayardelle, a college student and competitive CrossFit athlete, in a December 2020 civil ceremony, followed by an April 2021 outdoor ceremony. In December 2021, Cawthorn announced they were getting divorced. In April 2026, Cawthorn announced his engagement to Alisya Mata.
Cawthorn relocated from North Carolina to Cape Coral, Florida, after his term in Congress ended in 2023.
Cawthorn said that he trained in wheelchair racing for the 2020 Summer Paralympics, but never competed at a qualifying level and was not involved in a team.
Controversies
Sexual misconduct allegations
In August 2020, during Cawthorn's campaign for Congress, several women accused him of sexually aggressive behavior, sexual misconduct, and sexual assault.
Katrina Krulikas described an incident when she was 17 and Cawthorn was 19 in which he pressured her to sit on his lap and attempted to kiss her forcibly twice, which she resisted. Cawthorn did not deny the allegations, but said, "I did try and kiss her, just very normal, just in a flirtatious way", adding, "If I did make her feel unsafe, I feel bad", but questioned the timing of her allegation. His campaign characterized Krulikas's allegations as politically motivated, which she denied.
After Krulikas made her allegations, three other women made allegations of sexual misconduct against Cawthorn, including forcible grabbing and kissing. One woman said Cawthorn called her "just a little blonde, slutty American girl" when she rejected his sexual advances.
On October 17, 2020, a group of Patrick Henry College alumni released a public letter accusing Cawthorn of "sexually predatory behavior" while he was a student there for a little more than one semester, as well as of vandalism and lying. The letter originally had ten signatories but the number increased to over 150 alumni in less than a week. Cawthorn claimed that most of the signers did not know him personally and his campaign posted a response letter of support for him signed by six alumni, two of whom work for Cawthorn's campaign. Cawthorn's response letter implied support by former Patrick Henry College President Michael Farris; Farris disavowed the support letter and asked that he not be associated with it.
A February 2021 BuzzFeed News investigation found 20 people who said that Cawthorn had harassed his female classmates during college; the reporters spoke to four women who said he had harassed them. It was alleged that Cawthorn often recklessly drove women in his car to remote areas off campus while asking them sexual questions: he reportedly called these journeys "fun drives". Two resident assistants said they warned women to avoid Cawthorn and not to ride in his car. A male acquaintance said Cawthorn bragged about pulling a woman into his lap and putting a finger between her legs.
Circulation of nude video
On May 4, 2022, a video began circulating online that showed Cawthorn naked in bed, thrusting his genitals toward another man's face while moaning. Cawthorn said of the video, "Years ago, in this video, I was being crass with a friend, trying to be funny. We were acting foolish, and joking. That's it." He called the video "blackmail" on Twitter after he had released an eight-minute video addressing it and other controversies.
Legal issues
In February 2021, Transportation Security Administration agents at the Asheville Regional Airport discovered an unloaded Glock 9mm handgun and loaded magazine in Cawthorn's carry-on bag. A spokesman for Cawthorn said the gun, magazine, and ammunition were meant to have been stowed in his checked luggage.
In March 2022, Cawthorn was charged with driving while his license was revoked and while two speeding tickets were pending. He faced possible time in jail. Later that month, he agreed to a lesser improper speedometer charge for an October 2021 ticket in Buncombe County and paid over $200 in fines and fees. A 2017 charge of driving on a revoked license had been dismissed. Cawthorn had court dates in Polk and Cleveland counties in June 2022 for speeding and driving with a revoked license. His Polk County court date (for speeding in January 2022) was moved to February 2023, and his revoked license charge was dismissed by the Cleveland County district attorney's office in late 2022. Cawthorn moved to Florida after leaving political office and his attorney entered a guilty plea to a lesser speeding charge with a fine of about $200 in a deal that resolved his driving offenses.
In April 2022, Cawthorn was briefly detained at an airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, for attempting to board a commercial flight with a loaded handgun in his carry-on luggage. Police said he was cooperative, and he was cited for possession of a dangerous weapon on city property. On May 5, 2023, Cawthorn pleaded guilty and was fined $250.
In April 2024, Cawthorn received a traffic citation in Florida when he crashed his car into a state trooper vehicle in a construction zone.
On September 11, 2025, Cawthorn was arrested in Florida after failing to appear in court the previous day, for a citation he received for driving without a license. He was released on a $2,000 bond. In a statement, Cawthorn stated that he missed the hearing "due to a scheduling misunderstanding."
In April 2025, Cawthorn paid a $17,458 fine to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) pursuant to his duties as treasurer of his campaign committee. In 2022 the campaign committee, named MADISON PAC, missed filing a quarterly financial report with the FEC. In 2024, the FEC assessed a civil penalty against Cawthorn. Cawthorn paid the fine about half a year later after the FEC threatened to seize assets. He also terminated the campaign committee.