Madison Cawthorn wins, becoming youngest member of Congress

Republican candidate for Congress Madison Cawthorn is projected to win election to the U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday to fill the seat vacated by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, The Hill reported.

The Associated Press called the race for 25-year-old Cawthorn at 9:20 p.m.

Cawthorn will become the youngest member of Congress when he takes office in January. He will represent North Carolina's 11th Congressional District, a reliably conservative district in the western part of the state.

Paralyzed from the waist down in a 2014 car accident, Cawthorn's inspiring story of overcoming adversity made him an instant star in the GOP when he defeated a candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump in the June Republican congressional primary. His general election campaign pointedly criticized the Republican Party, accusing establishment Republicans of being "timid" on the issues.

"I definitely am running against the Republican Party," he told Politico in an interview last week. "They're a party that doesn't try to tackle real issues. They are a party that always says no to things."

He elaborated on his belief that "career politicians" in the Republican Party "have failed us" in an op-ed penned for the Daily Wire.

"Let us rise as a New Republican Party. A party that offers real solutions and attacks ideas rather than individuals. A party that meets voters where they are, and instead of belittling them for what they care about, offers a better way," Cawthorn wrote.

Democrats viciously attacked Cawthorn for holding supposed white supremacist beliefs after 2017 photos posted to Instagram surfaced showing him visiting a German country home used by Adolf HItler and Nazi officials known as the "Eagle's Nest."

"The vacation house of the Führer. Seeing the Eagles Nest has been on my bucket list for awhile, it did not disappoint. Strange to hear so many laughs and share such a good time with my brother where only 79 years ago a supreme evil shared laughs and good times with his compatriots," Cawthorn wrote in the photo's caption.

Cawthorn's Democratic opponent, retired Air Force Col. Moe Davis, tweeted, "Hitler's vacation retreat is not on my bucket list."

Cawthorn dismissed the controversy over his post, explaining that his photo was taken in the same spirit as U.S. military forces who took photos at the same place in celebrating their defeat of evil Nazi forces.

"When our soldiers were photographed at the Eagle's Nest in 1945 they were clearly celebrating the Allies triumph over one of the greatest evils in human history. They weren't celebrating evil; they were celebrating their victory over evil," Cawthorn said in August.

At 9:24 p.m. after the election was called, Cawthorn celebrated his victory with a tweet.