Tillis will not seek reelection amid tensions with Trump
'Too many elected officials are motivated by pure raw politics who really don't give a damn about the people they promised to represent on the campaign trail,' Tillis said. He said choosing to spend more time with family is 'not a hard choice, and I will not be seeking re-election.'
It was a quick end to a brutal 24 hours. The president floated backing a primary challenger to the North Carolina GOP senator on Saturday after Tillis voted against advancing Trump's tax and spending cuts bill, which is loaded up with steeper cuts to Medicaid than the House's version. Trump continued attacking Tillis on Sunday morning, calling him a 'talker and complainer' — all unwelcome developments in one of the toughest congressional races in the country next year.
Tillis was already leaning against running and was planning to make a decision in the late summer, but when he reviewed the ramifications of the Senate's Medicaid cuts he concluded they would have a 'devastating impact' on his state, according to a person close to him.
He viewed the Senate bill as a test case for a potential reelection campaign: Whether he'd be able to flex his independence from Trump and whether Republicans would have his back on key policy decisions. The Senate GOP's decision to move forward with its Medicaid cuts and Trump's subsequent attacks helped make the decision for him, the person said.
The White House and Senate leaders urged Tillis to keep his concerns about the bill private rather than take them public, said an operative close to GOP leadership, who called Tillis' vote on Saturday night 'the final blow and worried that 'the North Carolina race may prove more difficult with Tillis as the candidate,' this person said.
Because of Trump's success in the state, the operative added, many Republicans 'believe a credible Trump-backed candidate not only wins the primary without significant expense, but also gives Republicans a better chance to turn out a winning coalition in November.'
Tillis has said he could ultimately support the bill if it jettisons the Senate's aggressive cuts and returns to the House's level of cutbacks to the program. Yet it grew too awkward for the party and Tillis, who unseated an incumbent Democrat in 2014 before fending off a very tough challenge in 2020.
TIllis said on Sunday he looks 'forward to having the pure freedom to call the balls and strikes as I see fit and representing the great people of North Carolina to the best of my ability.'
Tillis might have been a stronger general-election candidate in his purple state than a Trump-inspired challenger. But Trump's attacks were making the senator's chances of winning a GOP primary very difficult, putting his seat at greater risk.
Tillis gave the White House and GOP leaders ample warning of his worries that the bill could create untenable political and policy consequences in his state. He'd previously aired serious public concerns about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's nomination before eventually voting yes as Trump ramped up the pressure.
But it became clear that his relationship with the Trump White House might not be able to survive a vote against the president's tax bill on final passage.
'Tillis hasn't said he's not going to vote for the final product. And maybe he still does,' said Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio.
Moreno added that the only way to hold the seat is to keep the party unified after any potential primary in North Carolina: 'When the party is divided, we lose.'
The National Republican Senatorial Committee declined to comment about Tillis viability earlier Sunday. After his announcement, NRSC Chair Tim Scott said the party's winning streak in the state's Senate races 'will continue in 2026 when North Carolinians elect a conservative leader committed to advancing an agenda of opportunity, prosperity, and security.'
Tillis dealt with a primary threat in 2020 after coming out against Trump's national emergency declaration on the border (he ultimately ended up supporting it).
He's also known to occasionally entertain policymaking compromises with Democrats and has suffered blowback from his party in the past for it; in addition, he's a proponent of further aid for Ukraine's defense against Russia.
Once Trump became president again in 2025, Tillis has voted for almost all of his nominees. One exception: He helped scuttle the nomination of Ed Martin to be US attorney for the District of Columbia over Martin's advocacy for some rioters who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
'There are tons of times in the Republican Party, it's cyclical, where we really have to take out the trash — and trash day is here for Senator Tillis,' said Michael Caputo, who is close to the White House and is a former senior adviser to Martin.
Tillis has been intimately involved with the Senate's version of the party-line bill. He immediately expressed alarm that its cutbacks to the provider tax, a Medicaid funding mechanism, would cost his state tens of billions of dollars.
Unlike Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., another bill opponent who's taken public heat from Trump, Tillis has not responded back in public.
'The House language could, in a very manageable way, effect about $800 billion in cuts, and it seems like the $200 billion additional we get in the Senate mark is just not enough juice for the squeeze. It's going to be very problematic for states to implement,' Tillis said Saturday, before Trump's attacks.
The two-term senator raised $2 million in the first three months of the year. Democrats like former Gov. Roy Cooper or state attorney general Jeff Jackson are considered potential contenders to run for the seat. Former Rep. Wiley Nickel is already running for the seat.
Some people close to Tillis have long been concerned about the amount of financial backing he'd receive, particularly if he became the subject of Trump's ire, The New York Times reported in May.
Trump's political operation recently Kentucky MAGA, a Super PAC aimed at defeating Massie, per Axios.
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