LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Voters on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump and nominated two Republicans who opposed the House seats in North Carolina and Kentucky.
In western North Carolina, Republican voters chose 24-year-old investor Madison Cawthorn, who uses a wheelchair after an accident, over Trump-backed real estate agent Lynda Bennett. The second round was for the vacant seat of Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, who stepped down to become Trump’s chief of staff and joined his new boss to back Bennett.
Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, a libertarian-minded rebel who often clashes with Republican leaders, was renamed for a sixth House term.
Trump attacked Massie in March as a “disaster for the United States” that should be kicked out of the party after it forced lawmakers to return to Washington during a pandemic to vote on a large financial aid package.
Cawthorn, who will reach the mandatory 25-year-old minimum when the next Congress is called, has said he supports Trump, and Massie is very conservative. Still, his victories were an embarrassment to a president whose own reelection campaign recently faltered.
