The 26-year-old, first-term North Carolina Republican saw both candidates he endorsed in Texas’s March 1 GOP congressional primaries lose — even failing to advance to the May 24 runoff. In his own state, the Republicans with whom Cawthorn serves are smarting from his aborted attempt to switch districts in the wake of decennial reapportionment and his half-baked hubristic campaign to anoint the GOP nominee in 11 of North Carolina’s 14 newly configured House seats.

“His antics are wearing thin with his colleagues and with Republican voters, though he still has a limited but fiercely loyal following with some activists,” a senior North Carolina Republican said…

But what appears to rankle so many North Carolina Republicans the most, what is causing “his act to wear thin,” party operatives in the state say, are two problems in particular: Cawthorn’s initial move to switch districts, later reversed, and his attempt to decide the political fate of the rest of the state’s GOP delegation by fancying himself kingmaker in the 11 House seats drawn to elect Republicans in an earlier version of redistricting.