Tillis retirement sets off NC Senate seat speculation
North Carolina U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis’ surprise retirement announcement over the weekend creates a sudden opening in next year’s midterm elections, setting off a scramble of successor speculation that includes both a former Democratic governor and a Trump other than the one who ultimately nudged Tillis into leaving.
Tillis’ decision, revealed Sunday after President Donald Trump threatened to back a primary candidate against him as Tillis opposed Medicaid reductions in the president’s tax break and spending cut package, is leading Republican politicians to size up whether they can lasso the electoral and financial support to compete for the seat. Anyone getting a Trump endorsement is likely to have the inside track for the GOP nomination next March.
“There’s a tremendous amount of people who are looking at the position and trying to determine whether they have the fire in belly to run for it,” state Rep. John Torbett said on Monday.
The absence of an incumbent emboldens national and state Democrats in their bid to flip back the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 advantage. A Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson said Tillis’ announcement was “another blow to Republicans’ chances as they face a midterm backlash that puts their majority at risk.”
But it’s still unclear whether their most high-profile potential candidate — former two-term Gov. Roy Cooper — is going to run. He hasn’t publicly revealed his plans, even though former U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel launched his own bid almost three months ago.
Cooper left office last December as a popular figure — mentioned briefly as a vice presidential choice for Kamala Harris — who has never lost an election for state office, dating to the mid-1980s. He was elected attorney general four times and is known for his fundraising prowess. Cooper spokesperson Morgan Jackson said Monday that Cooper “continues to strongly consider a run for the Senate and will decide in the coming weeks.”
Nickel’s campaign didn’t respond Monday to a message seeking comment, but Nickel said Sunday that “no matter which MAGA loyalist Donald Trump handpicks to run in North Carolina, I’m the Democrat who’s ready to take them on and win.”
Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in the ninth-largest state since 2008. That includes when Trump, as a former president, publicly endorsed then-U.S. Rep. Ted Budd for the GOP nomination nearly a year before the 2022 primary. Budd defeated former Gov. Pat McCrory in the primary by 34 percentage points.
The list of potential Republican candidates floating on social media appears long, with two close Trump allies among those mentioned often — current Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley and former RNC co-chair Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law. Neither has publicly spoken about the seat.
Both are originally from North Carolina, with Whatley a former chief of staff to then-U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole and later state GOP chair before he was elevated to the RNC post last year.
Whatley is considered by national Republicans to be a potentially formidable candidate in the state, given his wide network of relationships, strong fundraising record and the fact that he doesn’t have the baggage of past votes to explain.
Whatley, according to a person familiar with his thinking, is honored to have the RNC position and is neither actively considering nor putting out feelers for the Senate race. He sees his primary job as helping the White House find the right candidate, but also would not reject being considered, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Lara Trump now lives in Florida and anchors a weekly Fox News show. Having a Trump on the ballot in an off-year is seen as a potential boon for the party by national Republicans, though it remains unclear whether she will want to pursue a run. She declined to run for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina in 2022 and in 2024 took herself out of the running to fill the term of Marco Rubio as he became secretary of state.
Another candidate mentioned often is first-term U.S. Rep. Pat Harrigan, a West Point graduate and former Green Beret who served in Afghanistan and later became a defense-products manufacturer. A Harrigan political consultant is a former Tillis aide.
Tillis told The Associated Press Monday that he would likely get involved in the race for his replacement and said, ideally, Senate Republicans and the White House will land on a candidate who can win. “I know a lot about the state of North Carolina,” he said, “and I got a pretty good idea of the profile you need to win.”
Tillis declined to name favorites but advised would-be candidates to hold off on declaring their candidacies until close to the December filing deadline when, he argued, the political dynamics will be clearer.
Tillis’ retirement announcement — he will serve out the last 18 months of his term — heartened far-right Republicans and strong Trump supporters who have been unhappy for years with his willingness to challenge Trump’s actions and his Cabinet agency choices. Tillis sent Trump a text message on Saturday night, alerting him that he would not be running for reelection by telling the president: “Start thinking about my replacement.”
Trump responded in the text, a copy of which was seen by The Associated Press: “I am! DJT.”
Tillis also dropped a significant diss on social media. There was already no love loss between Tillis and former Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who had a crushing loss in the 2024 governor’s race to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein.
The loss came after the bombshell CNN Kfile report tying Robinson to a series of hateful, racist and sexually explicit online posts on a pornographic website, including calling himself a “Black Nazi.” The username for his posts was “minisoldr,” the same username Robinson has used for many less controversial posts.
After Tillis’ announcement Sunday, which came the same weekend President Donald Trump attacked him on social media for criticizing Trump’s major spending bill, Tillis posted on X: “Thanks for the retirement wishes, Mr. President, looking forward to working with you for a successful 2026. Word to the wise, let’s avoid minisoldr.”
Wetland Redefinition
Aligning North Carolina’s wetlands definition with that of the federal government’s would put the state’s waterways at risk, erase nature’s pollution filtration systems from the land, and increase flooding, speakers at a public hearing said. More than a dozen people commented during the Thursday night hearing in Raleigh on the revised wetlands definition the North Carolina General Assembly enacted into law two years ago. In accordance with the 2023 Farm Act, the state’s definition of wetlands must correspond with the federal government’s, which narrows the description of a wetland to having a continuous surface connection to the Waters of the United States, or those protected under the Clean Water Act.
The federal definition was changed to be consistent with a May 2023 Supreme Court ruling. In North Carolina, that alignment equates to the loss of protections for an estimated 2.5 million acres of wetlands, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality.
That agency has been implementing the definition since its approval in June 2023, but the state-appointed Environmental Management Commission, which is responsible for adopting rules that protect, preserve and enhance air and water resources, must go through the rulemaking process to amend the state’s existing wetlands definition.
The law legislators enacted two years ago explicitly directs that the Rules Review Commission cannot challenge the amendment. Those who spoke at Thursday’s public hearing, a mandated step in the rulemaking process, urged the Environmental Management Commission to work with legislators to rescind the amendment. No one who spoke supported the definition revision.
Helene Recovery
Democratic Gov. Josh Stein signed the latest Helene bill Friday, a day after Republican lawmakers in North Carolina’s House and Senate reached an agreement on a plan to further fund Western North Carolina recovery efforts. The plan passed both the House and Senate unanimously on Thursday in what’s expected to be the legislature’s last day in session for weeks.
Lawmakers then sent the bill to Stein, who signed it at Chimney Rock State Park at a ceremony to celebrate the reopening of the park after Helene caused damage that made the park inaccessible.
While there, Stein also announced a new tourism initiative aimed at bringing visitors back to Western North Carolina.
Sen. Ralph Hise, a Spruce Pine Republican who represents many of the mountain counties hardest-hit by the storm, said on Thursday the bill sets aside $700 million for a Helene reserve fund and spends $500 million from that fund.
He said it also shifts nearly $300 million within the state Department of Transportation’s budget to be used for Helene recovery efforts. It also appropriates $695 million in federal disaster funding for water and sewer projects related to Helene.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” Hise said, but “I see nothing but support from this body.”
Sen. Julie Mayfield, an Asheville Democrat, thanked Hise and other lawmakers for “bringing this together here on our last day.”
The House and Senate previously had two competing recovery packages. A key difference was a $60 million grant program for small businesses, included in the House bill but removed from the Senate’s version. Small business owners and Democrats have been pushing for such grants. But they were not included in the compromise bill.
Senate leader Phil Berger said after the vote that “we have consistently said that small business grants were not something that we would consider to be appropriate. We’ve not done small business grants for the east. We just didn’t feel like it was something that we needed to do at this point.”
Asked about the failure to include the grants, House Speaker Destin Hall said: “that’s a question for the Senate.
“We’re going to continue to try to push for some small business relief. It’s something on our side that we’d like to see done but that’s something that the Senate is not interested in doing at this point,” he said.
Road Money
North Carolina's largest cities will continue receiving state money for street paving projects — at least for now. Senate Republicans have tried twice this year to cut off so-called Powell Bill money going to the state's seven large cities, saying they'd save $50 million a year.
Senate Republicans said the money should instead support Hurricane Helene recovery in western North Carolina. So, earlier this week after budget negotiations stalled, senators slipped the cuts into a Helene relief bill both chambers hoped to pass by the end of the day Thursday. The cuts were negotiated out behind closed doors, and revealed around noon Thursday. Both chambers passed the legislation within two hours.
House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, told reporters the Senate's version of the bill "waded too deeply into transportation policy" and it was "not really necessary to have those [provisions] in the Helene bill."
Since 1951, communities have gotten help from the state government to maintain their roads through the Powell Bill.
The idea was a win for the League of Municipalities, according to state librarians. The league argued that local roads may not be part of the state highway system, but they're still valuable state infrastructure.
Powell Bill spending has since swelled to nearly $186 million annually. According to the Department of Transportation, most goes to resurfacing over 20,000 miles of municipal streets. It can also be used to fill in potholes, build bike paths and sidewalks, maintain bridges and salt roads before snow. The change would have affected cities with populations greater than 150,000 people. Those are Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville and Cary.
Many of those governments pushed back earlier this year, when they were crafting their own budgets under the looming threat.
"Things that get defunded in Raleigh in one cycle often find themselves being defunded for a much longer time than we originally anticipated," Winston-Salem's budget director Scott Tesh told the City Council in May.
Sen. Val Applewhite, D-Cumberland, told N.C. Newsroom the cuts being removed from the final bill was "amazing news for the city of Fayetteville."
"The volume of traffic that comes to our county because of Fort Bragg — and we're proud of that, right? — but there is an impact to our streets," Applewhite said.
Gov. Josh Stein signed the Helene bill into law Friday during a trip to the newly reopened Chimney Rock State Park.
Ride Tax
Starting July 1, taxi, limousine and rideshare companies will begin collecting a new state tax of 1.5% on fares for exclusive rides and 1% for shared rides. It’s essentially a sales tax, like the ones North Carolinians pay when they buy clothes or a meal in a restaurant.
State lawmakers voted to create the “transportation commerce tax” two years ago to generate more money for the state’s Highway Fund. The N.C. Department of Transportation draws on that fund to maintain existing roads and to help local governments with road, pedestrian and bicycle projects. The new taxes are part of a broader effort to diversify the sources of money North Carolina can use to build and maintain roads and bridges.
Lawmakers and NCDOT want to reduce the state’s reliance on gas taxes, which are becoming less dependable as cars become more fuel efficient or, in the case of electric vehicles, don’t use gas at all.
Lawmakers estimated that the transportation commerce tax would generate more than $11 million a year for the Highway Fund.
Other sources of revenue tapped in recent years include higher registration fees for EVs; a new registration fee for plug-in hybrid vehicles and new transaction fees on electronic payments to the Division of Motor Vehicles.