Who’s in?
N.C. Sen. Thom Tillis (R) announced on Sunday that he would not seek reelection in 2026. This decision comes after Tillis voted against advancing Donald Trump’s bigly budget bill to a Senate vote. Tillis believes the bill’s Medicaid cuts (that other Republicans deny are in the bill) would devastate his constituents.
The president messaged that Tillis had made “a BIG MISTAKE” and threatened a primary challenge. Tillis was already facing reelection headwinds and polls poorly against generic candidates.
Only Tillis and Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky voted against advancing the measure on Saturday. But unless two more Republicans defect after an expected fight to amend the measure, Republicans may yet pass it.
“What do I tell 663,000 people in two years, three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore, guys?” Tillis said in a floor speech. He told Trump that the “amateurs” advising him turned his crusade against waste, fraud, and abuse into a mechanism for gutting Medicaid.
The Associated Press reports:
The CBO estimates the Senate bill would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034, a nearly $1 trillion increase over the House-passed bill, which CBO has projected would add $2.4 to the debt over a decade.
The analysis also found that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law, an increase over the scoring for the House-passed version of the bill, which predicts 10.9 million more people would be without health coverage.
The stark numbers are yet another obstacle for Republican leaders as they labor to pass Trump’s bill by his self-imposed July 4th deadline.
After Tillis’s decision to spend more time with his family, the Cook Political Report shifted the race ranking to Toss Up. North Carolina will again be political ground zero in 2026.
NC Newsline provides a rundown of rumored and announced candidates. To date, only former U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel (D) and Don Brown (R), a former U.S. Navy JAG Officer and novelist, have announced runs for the seat. The remainder of Newsline’s list is a Who’s Who of D and R candidate speculation, most with little or no name recognition. The only real question is whether former Gov. Roy Cooper (D) will run. Democrats in the state have been holding their breath for that word for months now. Republicans too. Cooper would be Democrats’ most formidable candidate and turn a Toss Up race into a Lean Left one.
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