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This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and The Assembly.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis doesn’t want to be put in a box. To hear Tillis tell it, he can’t be.
“I had people come and ask me, ‘When did I become bipartisan?’” the senator told NOTUS. “I said, ‘You clearly haven’t watched my work.’”
With his Senate seat up for grabs next year, Tillis insists his conservative credentials are in just as good of a standing as his bipartisan ones.
“If people want to talk about they’ve got more conservative bona fides than me, name the place and the venue,” he said.
“Now, the fact that I may be respectful to people and not a name-caller and bombastic, I know that counts against me,” he added. “I’m OK with that.”
Tillis isn’t the sort of MAGA boogeyman Democrats love to campaign against. He doesn’t shy away from criticizing GOP tactics he disagrees with, even when they’re coming from President Donald Trump, and his national name recognition is far lower than recently targeted Senate Republicans like Ted Cruz, Rick Scott or Josh Hawley.
But Tillis, who’s in his second term in the Senate, is a devout member of the Senate GOP. He’s stood beside Trump in each of the president’s impeachment trials. And, this term, he’s voted to advance every one of Trump’s cabinet nominees. He hardly ever defects from the GOP position, even if he occasionally attempts to legislate on a bipartisan basis.
He is, in short, a reliable rank-and-file Republican.
That hardly sums up Thom Tillis, however.
Yes, he is a Republican who finds all sorts of reasons to vote with his party. Yes, the balance of the Senate could depend on his seat. But Tillis insists he isn’t the GOP shill that Democrats claim—and the fact that he will face stiff opposition during the primary this cycle may be the proof he needs to sell voters on his moderate credentials.
In his primary, Tillis almost certainly will be cast as a weak Republican. His critics from the right are already pushing that frame. The senator and his close allies, with support from the administration, maintain confidence that he’ll barrel through.
When asked what he makes of primary threats, Tillis was wry. “They’re cute,” he said.
“I like primaries better than generals, because it gets personal,” he said. “You can get down in the mud.”
While the senator seems to know he’s going to face a mud-slinging primary, no one in Tillis’ orbit is too scared. His allies all note that it’s in Trump’s best interests to support the man they see as the only viable candidate against Democrats.
“The only way that Donald Trump’s presidency has a long-lasting legacy is by having good midterms in 2026,” said Paul Shumaker, a longtime Tillis adviser. “And that means having candidates who are able to win in these battleground states.”
“When it comes to North Carolina, Thom Tillis is the one person that has proven twice the ability to win at times when nobody thought he was going to win,” Shumaker added.
A First Challenger
Andy Nilsson, a former candidate for North Carolina lieutenant governor, is the first Republican to launch a Senate campaign challenging Tillis. Nilsson defines himself as “unapologetically MAGA,” and says he intends to “drain the swamp of career politicians, beginning with Thom Tillis.”
“Voters of North Carolina thought they were getting a conservative Republican when they voted for Thom Tillis, and they haven’t been getting that,” Nilsson told NOTUS on Thursday. “In Raleigh and in Washington, he acts like a consummate dealmaker. At the end of the day, when you’re expecting a reliable conservative vote, you can never be sure with Tillis.”
Nilsson plans to point to Tillis’ voting record to prove his point. He named Tillis’ support for former President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees, his votes for Merrick Garland for attorney general and Pete Buttigieg for transportation secretary and his work with Sen. Dick Durbin on an “amnesty” plan for undocumented immigrants as decisions that do not align with North Carolina Republicans.
“If people want to talk about they’ve got more conservative bona fides than me, name the place and the venue.”
Sen.Thom Tillis
But again, Tillis’ allies aren’t too concerned.
“I find it humorous when people put the label of a RINO on him,” said Shumaker, referring to the nickname “Republican in Name Only.” “He can do more in two years than most of them have done in a lifetime.”
Of course, one of the challenges for Tillis is that, in the general election, the pendulum swings the other way.
Democrats are already framing him as a loyal henchman for the president, with the senator’s voting record serving as the primary ammunition.
“Voters will judge Tillis by his actions, not his empty words, and in just the first days of this Congress he has already accumulated a long record of votes across a range of issues that will hurt North Carolinians,” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson David Bergstein told NOTUS.
“When he faces voters in 2026, he won’t be able to explain away the votes he cast that betrayed the best interests of his state,” Bergstein said.
Purple State Blues
The dynamic of a primary where one has to prove their conservative credentials, and then a general where they have to burnish their bipartisan bona fides, isn’t exactly a novel concept. It’s not even new for Tillis. But it leaves him doing a delicate dance in a state that’s been increasingly competitive for both parties.
Tillis defeated Cal Cunningham, his 2020 Democratic opponent, with just a 2 percent margin after one of the most expensive Senate races ever. The senator said he expects his race next year to cost about twice as much.
And while Trump swept the top of the ticket in North Carolina in 2024, Democrats outperformed Republicans in statewide elections, electing one of their own for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, superintendent and secretary of state.
“When he faces voters in 2026, he won’t be able to explain away the votes he cast that betrayed the best interests of his state.”
David Bergstein, DSCC spokesperson
“We’re a decidedly purple state,” Tillis said. “I’ve got Republicans saying it’s trending red, and I got Democrats saying it’s trending blue, and no—when you’ve got the unaffiliated base now at over 40 percent, it’s an independent state, and I love that. The way you win in North Carolina is you’re gonna win somewhere around 49 percent, maybe 50 percent.”
“And it’s all about a million people who you know are in the middle,” he added.
If it’s about the middle, Democrats are certain to focus on every extreme instance where Tillis sided with Trump—and his past record of partisanship.
“When he was speaker of the House here, he was the boogeyman for us,” said Doug Wilson, a Democratic strategist in North Carolina. “This guy was behind the whole voter suppression thing with the gerrymandering and the voter ID, and I mean Democrats loathed Thom Tillis.”
Tillis was speaker of the North Carolina House for two terms beginning in 2011. At the time, he worked to increase restrictions on abortion, led efforts to block the expansion of Medicaid, fought for tighter voting ID requirements and worked to ban gay marriage.
But ever since he got to Washington, there’s been a shift for Tillis—or, at least, a shift in how voters perceive him, Wilson said.
“He gets to D.C. and is considered a moderate Republican,” Wilson said. “I mean, to the point that Republicans in the North Carolina Republican Party censured him.”
Tillis was formally censured by the state party at its annual convention in 2023 after being one of the lawmakers who pushed to codify same-sex and interracial marriage. Delegates in the party were also unhappy with Tillis’ attempt to get a bipartisan immigration proposal passed. And North Carolina Republicans have criticized Tillis for supporting certain bipartisan initiatives in Congress, like a gun safety bill that strengthened background checks.
Still, much of the race will depend on who Democrats put up. Former Gov. Roy Cooper would likely present the biggest challenge to Tillis. He was among a handful of Democratic governors who held on to their seats in states that otherwise voted Republican in statewide elections. (Cooper is also a potential 2028 presidential contender for Democrats.)
Asked what he makes of Democrats banking on Cooper, Tillis said he just didn’t know “why somebody would want to start this job at 72.” (Cooper would actually be starting the job at 69.)
It’s not all that unusual for senators to start their jobs later in life. Republican Sen. Jim Justice started his first term this year at 73. Democratic Sen. Peter Welch started his first term in the Senate at 75 in 2023. And so forth.
The age attacks, however, are an early preview of how Tillis would run against Cooper. Tillis—who himself would be starting his next term at 66—might consider himself among the more cordial members of Congress. But he still finds ways to take no-so-subtle shots at his opponents.
It’s not enough to convince Nilsson, who told NOTUS that, if it’s a general election contest between Tillis and Cooper, “Roy Cooper would eat his lunch.”
“The only reason Cal Cunningham lost to Tillis is because of Cunningham’s extramarital affair,” Nilsson said. “Tillis is a flip-flopper. He’s not a good campaigner and doesn’t really connect with people. He never has.”
2026 Is Already Underway
If it does end up being Tillis versus Cooper, the senator and his allies are already shoring up attacks.
Cooper appointed North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020 to lead the state’s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice, which worked to address law enforcement procedures that disproportionately affect communities of color. Earls is also running for reelection in 2026, giving Republicans an opportunity to link her to Cooper.
“She is one of the most radical far-left Democrats ever,” Shumaker, the longtime Tillis adviser, told NOTUS. “As a U.S. senator, he’ll recommend judges and play a big role in the selection of our judiciary. Anita Earls becomes Roy Cooper’s legacy, not his record as governor.”
Tillis insists he’d be ready for a bout with the former governor. The two men overlapped while serving in the state legislature. Their early beef is rooted there.
“He also had a stint in the legislature when I was in the minority, and I saw what the Democrats did to that state,” Tillis said, though Cooper’s last year in the legislature was 2000 and Tillis entered the statehouse in 2007.
“I’m quite prepared to present two very different visions for North Carolina,” he added. “The one that North Carolina’s living now, or the one that we rescued them from.”
Clarification: Quotes in this story included misstatements about how old Cooper would be if he ran for Senate and the dates Tillis and Cooper served in the state legislature. Additional information has been added.
Ursula Perano is a reporter at NOTUS covering the Senate. She was previously with Politico, Axios, and The Daily Beast.
Calen Razor is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.