Cawthorn defeated 62-year-old Democrat Moe Davis – a retired Air Force Colonel and former Guantanamo Bay prosecutor – in the state's 11th Congressional District, after a surprise win at the primaries earlier this year.
He'll now replace 31-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – a democrat representing New York in the House of Representatives – as the youngest member of Congress, being the minimum age set forth in the Constitution to serve in the House.
Cawthorn will serve in the seat previously held by Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
"The days of AOC and the far left misleading the next generation of Americans are numbered," he said in a prepared victory statement.
"Tonight, the voters of Western North Carolina chose to stand for freedom and a new generation of leadership in Washington."
He added that now is not a time to "settle scores, but to secure the future".
"Rather than tearing each other down, we need to lift each other up. The scope and magnitude of our challenges are too great to tolerate a dysfunctional status quo. The fight ahead isn't against individuals – our fellows Americans – but destructive ideas that should stay in the ash heap of history," the statement read.
According to Politico, Cawthorn – the paraplegic survivor of a near-fatal car crash when he was 18 – centred his campaign on a "scathing critique of his own party, calling it xenophobic, feckless and devoid of empathy".
But he's also aligned himself with the President – a man who has been accused, on multiple occasions, of embodying all three of those traits.
"I definitely am running against the Republican Party," he said 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."
Reports have noted that social media posts of Cawthorn's referred to Adolf Hitler as "the Fuhrer" and said that visiting Hitler's German vacation home, a "bucket list" experience of his, "did not disappoint".
Cawthorn has also been accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct, with public relations consultants on his campaign hitting back and calling the allegations "(Brett) Kavanaugh-like character assassination".
