Thom Tillis’ Spat With Trump Advisers Raises a New Reelection Challenge

This story is republished from NOTUS as part of our partnership with the D.C.-based outlet.

If he’s going to win North Carolina’s Republican nomination for Senate this cycle, Sen. Thom Tillis almost certainly needs President Donald Trump’s support in the GOP primary—and close advisers to the president are raising the prospect that he might not get it.

“Thom Tillis is running 20 points behind DJT in North Carolina,” Trump adviser Arthur Schwartz posted on X on Thursday, referring to a recent poll showing Tillis with a 25 percent approval rating. “We’re going to need a new senate candidate in NC unless we want to hand the gavel back to Schumer.”

Schwartz’s tweet triggered a series of reactions on Thursday. Tillis responded by telling reporters that Schwartz is a “political hack” and a “shitty consultant.” That, in turn, led Andy Surabian—a Republican strategist who is Vice President JD Vance’s and Donald Trump Jr.’s top political adviser—to respond to Tillis with his own pointed tweet. 

“What kind of shitty campaign is Thom Tillis running that he attacks someone who no one in NC has ever heard of over a tweet?” Surabian posted on X. “While Arthur isn’t a billionaire, he is indeed a smart guy. We have worked together for years overseeing all of Don Jr’s political activities. Not smart!”

Tillis is widely seen as the GOP’s best chance at retaining the North Carolina swing seat. But first he has to survive the primary, where his light history of working with Democrats is a bit of a liability. Tillis has been trying to play both sides of the dynamic, voting in lockstep with Trump on his legislative agenda and for his cabinet while also nodding to his bipartisan record, which could be helpful in the general election.

But Tillis’ choice of getting in a public spat with one of Trumpworld’s most plugged-in figures was a questionable move for a senator trying to maintain good relations with the president and his inner circle. Of course, North Carolina GOP operatives also thought it was questionable for Trumpworld to go after Tillis.

“I was a little shocked that he took that approach given it’s still a long way to an election and Tillis has been in lockstep with the president,” GOP strategist Wayne King said of Schwartz. “This polling was done by PPP, a very Democratic poll which typically has Democratic candidates ahead.”

That last point, that Public Policy Polling is a Democratic operation, was a common point North Carolina Republicans raised.

“PPP is a Democratic poll designed to attack Tillis,” Paul Shumaker, a longtime Tillis adviser, told NOTUS. “Republicans who are guided by PPP are misguided.”

The poll, released Thursday, found Tillis unpopular and trailing in a potential contest against former Democratic governor Roy Cooper. The general election prediction placed Cooper at 47 percent of the vote and Tillis at 43 percent. Tillis’ allies argued that, if Schwartz knew anything about North Carolina’s evenly divided electorate and past polls in the state, he would see that a single PPP poll is hardly a concern. 

“Based on his tweet, it doesn’t appear to me that he knows a whole lot about North Carolina Senate campaign history,” Republican strategist Doug Heye, who’s from North Carolina, said of Schwartz. “I say that having worked on multiple races that we were never going to win and we won all of them.”

Heye and other Tillis allies argued that Republican candidates for senator in the state have often been predicted to lose by polling in the lead up to elections and still won — including Tillis himself. Also included in the list are former Sens. Jesse Helms, Lauch Faircloth, Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr.

“Every poll has put Tillis very close to his competitors in the past,” King said. “He won in very tough battles including against incumbent Senator [Kay] Hagan. And you know incumbents rarely get beat.”

The debate highlights the potentially bumpy road to Tillis’ reelection campaign. Tillis himself told NOTUS he was getting a positive reception in the state and that he has the support of the administration. But the dustup comes as some members of Congress from North Carolina have withheld their endorsement of Tillis.

Meanwhile, the GOP operatives supporting Tillis suggested Trumpworld was just kicking up dust so that Tillis would have to remain aligned with Trump.

“The people who surround Trumpworld, there’s always an appetite for keeping the waters chalky and for trying to make an argument for who is the most pure,” Heye told NOTUS. “And, ultimately, the argument is that nobody is great as they are, whether they’re running or not.”

Calen Razor is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.