Thom Tillis may not have to worry about a 2026 primary challenge anymore | Opinion
Despite an intense wave of dissatisfaction from Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of his party, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis might not have to worry about a primary when he runs for reelection next year.
Tillis announced some big hires to his reelection campaign Tuesday, including several connections to Trump’s own campaign. Among the hires are Trump’s pollster, Trump’s chief data consultant and the leader of the Trump campaign’s fundraising efforts.
That’s probably almost certainly good news for Tillis, who has come under serious fire in recent months from right-wing voters and Trump allies, who blast him as a RINO and a traitor for occasionally stepping out of line with Trump and other Republicans. Most recently, Tillis tanked a controversial Trump nominee over his views on Jan. 6, a move that had many calling for an end of his political career.
For months, it seemed like Tillis might be in trouble. Trump himself reportedly threatened to endorse another North Carolina lawmaker in the Republican primary if Tillis withheld support for one of the president’s Cabinet nominees, and Punchbowl News reported in March that some of those lawmakers were hesitant to endorse Tillis or fundraise alongside him just yet. A report circulated on social media late last year found that more than a third of likely GOP voters said they’d prefer someone else over Tillis in next year’s primary.
But that “someone else” appears increasingly unlikely to surface, especially now that Tillis is assembling such a strong campaign. While some right-wing activists have lined up to challenge Tillis, a truly formidable primary opponent has not, despite rumors that someone like former Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson or Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, might run. There aren’t many people who can gather a campaign as well-connected and well-funded as the one Tillis already has.
Chris Cooper, a Western Carolina University political science professor, said he doesn’t believe one will. It remains to be seen whether a more Trump-friendly campaign will help Tillis earn the president’s endorsement, but it may not matter. Without a serious challenger, he may not even need Trump’s endorsement to win. He just needs Trump to not endorse someone else.
“You don’t endorse the field versus somebody,” Cooper said. “You have to endorse a specific candidate, and who on earth that is prominent is going to want to get into this race now, given the signals Thom Tillis is sending?”
Allying himself with key Trump campaign staff may also be a sign that Tillis is looking to curry favor with the more conservative wing of his party — a group of voters that may not be particularly excited to vote for anyone right now. Attempting to repair his standing with Trump supporters may be his best path to victory in what will likely be a fiercely competitive general election, especially if someone like former Gov. Roy Cooper runs against him.
“Leaning into the MAGA wing of the party will freeze out any other potential prominent challenges from the right, but it also will probably help his momentum a little bit on the right as well,” Cooper said. “And reaching into Trump world to get these other consultants says that [the general election] is going to be a nationalized, expensive and blistering campaign,” Cooper said.
While Tillis may not need the support of Republican voters to lose an uncompetitive primary, he will certainly need them if he wants to be reelected next November. North Carolina may be a purple state, but it doesn’t have a whole lot of truly purple voters, so victory is best achieved by mobilizing your own base.
The particulars of assembling a campaign team may seem like a lot of inside baseball, but in the world of politics, it can matter a lot. Cooper called it an “almost invisible game that’s happening behind the scenes.”
“Ultimately, I think it reinforces that it’s gonna be next to impossible to primary Thom Tillis,” Cooper said. “And it says that this general election campaign is going to be the barn burner we all thought it might be.”
