Thom Tillis Has a Donald Trump Predicament

As Capitol Hill buzzed with news of President-elect Donald Trump’s first cabinet nominations last week, a gaggle of reporters stopped Sen. Thom Tillis to ask about one controversial pick: Matt Gaetz, the firebrand congressman from Florida, as U.S. attorney general.

“Mr. Gaetz and I have sparred on social media. I don’t care about that,” Tillis said. “What I care about is a defensible resume and a really clean vetting. Produce that, and he’s got a chance. Don’t, and he doesn’t.”

Meanwhile, just three blocks away, Tillis’ advisers were meeting at the National Republican Senatorial Committee offices to continue planning his 2026 re-election campaign. This week, they announced a February 5 “Campaign Kickoff Reception” in Raleigh with fellow Sen. Ted Budd and members of the state’s congressional delegation.

Though Gaetz suddenly dropped his bid Thursday, Tillis will still face some difficult decisions. Other controversial cabinet nominations include Robert Kennedy Jr., former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, and former Fox TV host Pete Hegseth. 

The 2026 campaign has already begun. A third term for the 64-year-old Tillis could hinge not only on how he votes on the confirmations, but on how much he supports Trump and his policies over the next two years.

Tillis will have to walk the line between appealing to general election swing voters and an increasingly militant GOP primary electorate, which this year bypassed establishment statewide candidates for more hard-right nominees.

Tillis hasn’t said how he’ll vote on the cabinet nominations, though he has said there should be votes. “No serious nominee for Cabinet-level position is going to want to be confirmed as a recess appointment,” he told reporters this week in response to suggestions that Trump could use a process that wouldn’t require Senate confirmation.

Jessica Taylor, an editor of the Cook Political Report, said of the 22 GOP Senate incumbents facing re-election in 2026, Tillis would be “one of the two most vulnerable.”

For one thing, he’ll face challenges common to all midterm candidates from the party that controls the White House. Then he could face a challenge back home–from a state party that censured him just last year.

“It’s generally accepted that the president’s party is going to suffer in midterms,” said political scientist Michael Bitzer of Catawba College. “But when the president’s [GOP] base is already suspicious of the incumbent, that makes an even bigger mountain to try to climb.”

No one may be more critical to Tillis than Trump, who has carried the state three times. “President Trump has a strong hold on the Republican primary vote,” said GOP strategist Charles Hellwig. “And he’ll have a huge say in who our nominee is in ’26.”

Tillis could not be reached. Paul Shumaker, his chief consultant, said he’s not worried. “It’s always been competitive for Thom Tillis,” he said. “But he’s always won, and he’ll win in the future.”

Tension with Trump

For Tillis, being one of the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents is nothing new.

In 2018, he sponsored a bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, a probe then-President Trump loudly opposed. Tillis later helped kill a Trump appointment to the Environmental Protection Agency. In early 2019, he wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post vowing to oppose Trump’s proposed national emergency declaration to build a border wall.

Just three weeks later, Tillis reversed himself and voted with Trump on the declaration. That April, a poll showed his approval among North Carolina Republican voters had fallen by 12 percentage points. By September 2019, when Tillis appeared at a Trump rally in Fayetteville, he was greeted with boos.

Raleigh businessman Garland Tucker mounted a primary campaign against him and financed it with $1.3 million. Tucker dropped his bid in late 2019, citing Trump’s endorsement of Tillis. At a Charlotte rally in March 2020, Trump called Tillis “a tremendous supporter” but acknowledged some bumps. “We were going at it a little bit at the beginning,” Trump told the crowd. “But if I didn’t get along, I would not be here.” Tillis went on to win a close election.

Since then his profile has risen. And so has controversy.

He, along with fellow North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, voted to certify the results of the 2020 election; only one of the state’s eight GOP House members did. Tillis voted to confirm President Joe Biden appointees such as Attorney General Merrick Garland. He worked across the aisle to help pass measures on infrastructure, immigration, and LGBTQ rights, as well as the first gun safety bill in three decades.

“Pick your favorite conservatives—your biggest fire-breathing conservative,” he told The Assembly in 2022. “Let’s list out what their accomplishments are. I’m willing to stand by mine.”

But all of that fueled the state party’s 2023 censure, as well as measures approved by dozens of county parties. How much that will mean in 2026 is debatable.

“The party censured him, but it’s the people in the party active enough to be on Central Committee,” said Donald Bryson, CEO of the conservative John Locke Foundation. “I would venture to say that most registered Republicans in North Carolina don’t even know there is a Central Committee.”

This year, Tillis helped raise money for GOP candidates across the country. “Some may think he’s radioactive in North Carolina, but he’s certainly not radioactive in the country,” former Sen. Burr, who retired early last year, told The Assembly.

If some state Republicans continue to be wary of Tillis, they say he appears wary of them.

Michele Woodhouse of Henderson County, who chairs the 11th District GOP and was a delegate to the national convention, said she never saw the senator at a delegation breakfast or with state delegates on the convention floor like other elected officials. For Trump-aligned activists like her, “he’s beyond on shaky ground.”

“In some ways, Sen. Tillis has got himself in a situation where he’s kind of damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t,” she said. “He’s stuck between, ‘Do I support Donald Trump’s appointments, or do I go against him for the moderate voters and donors?’ Voting for Trump’s cabinet nominations is a good step in getting back in good graces.”

‘Difficult Tightrope’

Last Friday, one state Republican fired back at Tillis’ GOP critics.

“The same morons who brought you Mark Robinson now want to primary Tillis so Republicans can lose another winnable statewide race,” Brent Woodcox posted on X. “Make sure y’all don’t trip over all the bodies of the people who have tried to take him out before.”

Robinson, the lieutenant governor, turned back two establishment Republicans in this year’s gubernatorial primary before revelations by The Assembly and CNN of his visits to porn stores and Web forums helped sink his campaign against Democrat Josh Stein, who won by 15 points.

“Coming so freshly off an election where Republicans failed to win statewide races that were winnable, one would think that there would be some reluctance to throw off a ballot a candidate who’s won two different statewide races,” said Woodcox, a Raleigh lawyer and longtime party operative.

As much as Republicans are watching Tillis’ performance, so are Democrats.

“Tillis has a very difficult tightrope to walk,” said Morgan Jackson, a consultant to Gov. Roy Cooper and other Democrats. “He has to bow down and kiss the ring and pledge fealty to Donald Trump, or he’ll lose a primary. And if he does do that, he’ll lose the general election.”

So far one Democrat, outgoing U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel, has floated a 2026 Senate run. Others say Cooper could jump in. No Republican has challenged Tillis yet, though Robinson is mentioned as a challenger; Robinson said Wednesday that running again “is not on my radar at all.” (If he does run, Shumaker, the Tillis consultant, said, “My [TV] ads won’t be as nice as Josh Stein’s were.”)

Another possibility could be Lara Trump, the president-elect’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee, who grew up in Wilmington and graduated from N.C. State University. She flirted with a 2022 run for the seat Burr was about to vacate before abandoning the idea. She now lives in Florida and has been mentioned as a replacement for Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Trump’s choice for secretary of state.

In 2026, North Carolina Republicans could face a choice. Do they nominate somebody who’s in lockstep with the president? Or somebody who may not be aligned on every vote but gives them the best chance of winning and keeping a Senate majority? They know the stakes are high. 

“With the changing demographics of North Carolina, I fear that if we lost that seat in ’26 we’ll never get it back,” Woodhouse said. “The blue counties are getting bluer, and the red counties are getting older. That’s a recipe for disaster.”