In the first big shock of the night, Madison Cawthorn has lost his primary bid to run for reelection in North Carolina’s 11th congressional district. The Republican nominee will instead be Chuck Edwards, who is currently a state senator.

The final result was close, but not quite close enough for the incumbent, with Edwards winning the 30 percent (plus one vote) necessary to take an outright victory and not endure a run-off.

I've seen enough: Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R) has lost renomination to state Sen. Chuck Edwards (R) in the #NC11 GOP primary.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) May 18, 2022

Cawthorn has had a tumultuous past month, with a relentless opposition research campaign waged against him. In some cases, the attacks were completely unfair. Yet, many of the attacks were simply playing off of self-inflicted wounds. The videos of Cawthorn humping his cousin while naked and groping a male staffer likely harmed him as well.

In the end, I think this is for the best. Cawthorn needs personal help, and simply being a Trump supporter is not enough to ignore his issues. Though I’ve defended him from some of the attacks he’s faced lately, in the end, my patience for bad candidates is thin in an election year this big. Cawthorn had his chance and didn’t deliver.

Lastly, to add some levity to any disagreement here, in the end, we are talking about a single, heavily GOP district in North Carolina. Even if one preferred Cawthorn, tonight’s result doesn’t change anything fundamentally.