Specifically, there’s no money to repay the supporters who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in advance to Cawthorn’s election efforts beyond the primary—to the general election he now won’t be competing in.
Cawthorn legally must return those donations, but there’s no money to repay them.
“Nobody ever did the math, which baffled me because the spending was so outrageous,” the campaign source told The Daily Beast. This person pointed to a spree of frivolous charges over the last year that all accelerated into 2022, such as $1,500 in “egregiously” frequent trips to Chick-Fil-A, almost $3,000 at a place called Papa’s Beer, three separate charges at a high-end cigar shop, $21,000 for lodging in Florida and—the biggest drain—hundreds of thousands of dollars in sky-high consulting and fundraising fees, including for Cawthorn’s friend and campaign manager, Blake Harp, who was drawing a salary beyond federal limits.
According to available data, Cawthorn’s jilted donors include friends and neighbors in western North Carolina, nearly three dozen retirees from Bakersfield to Boca Raton, a former Army major, billionaire GOP megadonors Bernie Marcus, Steve Wynn, John Childs, and H. Ross Perot Jr, and powerful Republican colleagues, including political committees tied to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA).
Lots more where that came from at The Daily Beast
