State lawmakers made it more appealing Thursday for U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn to stay in his home district, instead of running against potential candidate N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore.

Under the new map released Thursday, Cawthorn’s district is now more favorable to a Republican candidate than the district he said he would run in.

Meanwhile, Moore told McClatchy Thursday that he isn’t ruling out a congressional run, but he is focused on redistricting before he makes a decision.

The General Assembly has been busy this week proposing new congressional districts and legislative maps for the House and Senate. The N.C. Supreme Court ordered legislators earlier this month to redraw them after determining the maps unfairly gave Republicans an advantage. They have until Friday to submit a new map for the courts to approve by Feb. 23.

Under the previous proposal from November, Cawthorn’s district on the far west side of the state was one of the few outliers where lawmakers diluted his district of Republicans.

Now, Cawthorn’s adopted district would be as much of a swing district as exists in North Carolina, said Chris Cooper, political science professor at Western Carolina University.

“It’s not a district that screams ‘Madison Cawthorn should run here,’” Cooper said.

The move by lawmakers could be seen as a truce with the 26-year-old freshman Republican from Henderson County. They gave him back the Republican voters they had taken away in the now-overturned map.

It could also be a move to get Cawthorn out of the district believed to have been drawn for Moore.

Senators took the lead in drawing the new congressional districts. Thursday, reporters asked Senate leader Phil Berger whether the district was drawn specifically to push Cawthorn back to his original district.

“He’ll have to decide what he’ll do,” Berger said. “But no, the overall idea was to create competitive districts, and that seemed to be a place you could do that, simply because in the far western part of the state, you have a stronger Republican presence. And so creating a competitive district there would be very difficult unless you drew some interesting lines.”

He added that he had not spoken with Moore about how to draw the district.

The U.S. Constitution does not require a candidate running for Congress to live in the district they represent.

In November, Cawthorn announced his decision to move districts, saying that he wanted to ensure a “go along to get along” Republican wasn’t elected to represent the area around Cleveland County.

“I will not let that happen,” Cawthorn said as he announced his move.

Within hours, Moore announced that he would instead seek reelection as North Carolina’s House speaker.

In December, Cawthorn filed with the Board of Elections to run in Moore’s presumed district. Candidate filing was abruptly stopped by the N.C. Supreme Court while it reviewed the maps.

Because Cawthorn filed before the Supreme Court’s order, he will have until March 1 to withdraw from his adopted district. That leaves three days for Cawthorn, Moore and other potential challengers to file to run.

If Cawthorn refiles then, it could give opponents an early look at Cawthorn’s plans before they make their own.

Under the new map, Cawthorn is boxed in as two incumbents — Reps. Dan Bishop and Patrick McHenry — surround him in neighboring districts.

Bishop is likely to run outside the district he now lives in to represent the constituents who elected him.

Bishop represents Anson, Hoke, Montgomery, Moore, Richmond, Robeson, Scotland, Stanly, Union and parts of Columbus, Davidson and Mecklenburg counties. The new map leaves out Stanly and Mecklenburg, where Bishop lives.

Bishop told The News & Observer Wednesday, before the finalized map came out, that he would likely return to the 9th District but was waiting for the final map before making a decision.

McHenry is in his ninth term in Congress and has served as a chief deputy whip. He lives north of Bishop’s home and likely is not someone Cawthorn would want to challenge, Cooper said.

“Patrick McHenry is an extremely powerful member of Congress, loved by both the establishment wing of the Republican Party and the America First wing of the Republican Party,” Cooper said. “He is as unassailable as they come in Republican politics.”

That leaves Cawthorn deciding whether to stay in his adopted district and potentially face Moore or to stay with his home district.

The proposed map gives Moore — one of the state’s top Republicans — a second chance at running a 2022 campaign to represent his home in Congress.

Moore grew up and lives in Kings Mountain in Cleveland County. He works as an attorney and has been a member of North Carolina’s General Assembly since 2002. He is the state’s longest-serving Republican House speaker, currently in his fourth term.

“I think this does show that patience is a virtue in redistricting and in electoral politics,” Cooper said. “Tim Moore waited, he bided his time, and the situation that has unfolded is undoubtedly better for him than the one he was faced with when Madison Cawthorn initially decided to run.”

As for Cawthorn, the youngest member of the 117th Congress has made a name for himself as one of the country’s more outspoken, Trump-supporting Republicans. He also has found himself in a myriad of controversies in his first term in Congress.

Cawthorn was born in Asheville and lives in Henderson County. A 2014 car accident left Cawthorn paralyzed, and media coverage of his healing process helped elevate his name in western North Carolina.

He was just old enough to run for Congress in 2020 and beat Lynda Bennett, who was supposed to be the handpicked successor of U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows. (Meadows became Trump’s chief of staff.)

When Cawthorn told his constituents he was adopting a new district, he asked them to vote for Michele Woodhouse, the former GOP chairwoman of the 11th Congressional District.

Now, she and a lengthy list of candidates who filed to challenge Cawthorn are waiting for him in his home district. So is state Sen. Chuck Edwards, who filed to run after Cawthorn left the district.

If the Senate map prevails and Moore runs, Cooper said, “Cawthorn is going to have to decide whether he wants to run against the North Carolina speaker of the House in a more competitive Republican district or retreat back home and run against a sitting state senator in a more Republican district.”

Will Doran contributed to this article.

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