'Painful to watch': Challengers worry about Madison Cawthorn -- and feel he'd be 'relieved' to lose

Rep. Madison Cawthorn has come under fire from his fellow Republicans, who are angry, frustrated and deeply concerned about his conduct since getting elected as the youngest member of Congress. The magazine spoke to dozens of associates in Washington and back home in North Carolina, who all tended to agree Cawthorn had not recovered from a 2014 car crash that left him in constant pain and unable to walk: “'He’s not OK,' said Michele Woodhouse, the former Republican chair of the 11th District who’s now running against him. IN OTHER NEWS: Kevin McCarthy is 'on the least solid ground' to defy Jan. 6 subpoena: CNN legal analyst “He has an extreme version of what I always call successful person syndrome,” said a Republican strategist familiar with Cawthorn and his campaign. “Politics is like a vice amplifier," said a GOP consultant who knows Cawthorn, "and then when you’re a young man who has a terrible accident like that, and your identity is kind of stripped from you, all of that is amplified even more.” Cawthorn is facing a steep challenge in the Republican primary race, and Karen Wilson, a former supporter whose partner Bruce O'Connell is one of those challengers, said she recently spent time with the congressman and thinks he would be "relieved" to lose. “Madison,” said retired Army colonel Rod Honeycutt, “is a young man in trouble.” “As a Christian,” said challenger Matthew Burril, “it is to me very painful to watch his spiral.” Watch the story below: