Trump's pick to replace Tillis could boost Republican midterm turnout in North Carolina, analysts say

Political parties typically benefit from having an incumbent candidate on the ballot, but U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis didn’t bring that advantage to the campaign trail in 2026, Republican insiders and political scientists say.

Tillis, first elected in 2014 over former Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, won a second term in 2020 but announced Sunday that he won’t seek reelection when his term expires. The announcement was welcome news to several GOP insiders who told WRAL News that North Carolina Republicans will be better off with someone new at the top of the ticket.

Tillis dropping out “is the best thing that could’ve happened for our chances not only in the Senate race but also down the ballot,” said Charles Hellwig, who led a Republican challenger’s campaign against Tillis in 2020 and now has clients in the state legislature.

A spokesman for Tillis declined to comment for this article.

Tillis won his seat in 2014 by championing a conservative record as speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, but he lost support from GOP base over the years by questioning some of President Donald Trump’s decisions and working with Democrats to secure same-sex marriage rights and bipartisan efforts to open a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants.

Tillis’s opposition to Trump’s tax-and-spending bill, which sponsors call the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” may have destroyed their relationship beyond repair. Tillis said the bill would disqualify hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians from their Medicaid coverage.

A day before Tillis dropped out, Trump said on social media that he’d consider supporting other candidates for Tillis’s seat.

“Our politics has become all nationalized, and particularly within the Republican Party: it is beholden loyalty to President Trump,” said Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College in Salisbury. “Whatever he wants, all Republicans are expected to fall into line.”

The candidate at the top of the ballot usually drives turnout across the state and the U.S. Senate race is the marquee contest in North Carolina next year. Republicans hope to keep Tillis’s seat, win the state’s lone state Supreme Court race and gain a supermajority in the General Assembly, where they already control both chambers.

But historically, midterm elections are more difficult for the party occupying the White House. And party insiders — from elected officials to campaign operatives in Washington and North Carolina, among others — worried that Tillis’s waning support among the GOP base would lead to poor turnout in next year’s midterms if he were the GOP nominee.

Meanwhile, Democratic voters are expected to be energized. The party hopes to retake control of the Senate in 2027 and many political analysts see North Carolina as their best chance for doing that.

“North Carolina and probably Maine and Georgia will be within everybody's target sites to see who ultimately is in control of the U.S. Senate,” Bitzer said. “So North Carolina will once again be prime territory for not just national, but probably international interest in terms of the midterm elections.”

Democrats haven’t won a U.S. Senate race in North Carolina since 2008, but they regularly win other statewide races and expect to nominate a strong candidate in next year’s primary. Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who has never lost an election, is considering a run. Former U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel, who won North Carolina’s lone toss-up congressional race in 2022, has already launched a campaign. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report considers the 2026 North Carolina race a tossup, shifting from “lean Republican” after Tillis dropped out.

‘More confident than ever’

Political analysts say there’s more to winning elections than turning out a party’s base — especially in North Carolina.

Candidates usually need to appeal to swing voters who have a long history of splitting their tickets, said Stephen Wiley, a Republican political analyst who has coordinated legislative campaigns across the state.

“Tillis has a demonstrated ability to win enough swing voters to have success,” Wiley said. “Whoever the Republican nominee is will have to focus as much, if not more, on those swing voters in the general election.

With Tillis out of the race, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is “more confident than ever” that the GOP will be able to keep the North Carolina seat red, according to a draft NRSC memo to donors obtained by WRAL News.

The NRSC is the leading Washington, D.C., group that helps elect Republicans to the U.S. Senate. An NRSC operative confirmed the memo’s authenticity and said the group plans to send it to U.S. Senators, campaign operatives, and Republican donors across the country.

“North Carolina is an increasingly Republican state, and Senator Tillis’ retirement clears the way for our deep Republican, pro-Trump bench,” the NRSC memo says. “We are now more confident than ever that we will win big in 2026.”

Numerous internal polls of the race showed Tillis down at least 9 points in hypothetical head-to-head races against Democrats, according to a Republican operative with direct knowledge of the polls. The polls pitted Tillis against Cooper and North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, who hasn’t publicly expressed interest in the Senate race but is seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party. Those same polls also showed a generic Republican outperforming Tillis against Cooper or Jackson.

Tillis’s troubles were also reflected in poll results published Tuesday by YouGov and Catawba College. The poll, conducted in mid-June, found that 52% of North Carolinians approved of Cooper while only 33% approved of Tillis.

Insiders expect Trump to consult with Republicans behind-the-scenes before endorsing a loyalist for the nomination that GOP voters will be expected to support. They say the short list of candidates includes: Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law; Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, who led the state GOP for five years; and U.S. Rep. Pat Harrigan, a combat veteran and vocal Tillis critic.

In its draft memo, the NRSC pointed to Trump’s ability to carry North Carolina in 2016, 2020 and 2024 as evidence that the GOP’s Senate nominee can win by running on Trump’s agenda.

“President Trump has strengthened the Republican coalition for three straight cycles, voter registration trends continue to move our way, and voters overwhelmingly support President Trump’s conservative agenda,” the memo states. “With a strong message and continued investment, Republicans will hold North Carolina in 2026, and we will keep the state red for years to come.”

Democrats were already confident in their ability to flip Tillis’s seat, according to Anderson Clayton, the chair of the state Democratic Party. Democrats now in an even better position because Republicans are likely to replace Tillis with a more extreme candidate who's less appealing to swing voters, Clayton told WRAL.

Tillis’s retirement "shows just how much influence the most fringe right-wing voices have in [the GOP] primary,” she said in a statement Sunday.

“Our state is not a pawn in Donald Trump's political games,” Clayton said. “Over the next 18 months, we’re excited to lay out the choices voters have in this election and ensure North Carolinians see the Republican nominee for the far-right crony they will be.”