#NCSEN26: Tillis tangling w/ Vance, Trump political teams
He’s won two US Senate races by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin. He’s never seen 50 percent of the vote against a Democrat Senate candidate, but somehow — based on the words coming out of his big mouth — thinks he is the invincible King of The World.
(*Yeah, fighting publicly with the guys who are the future of the GOP — who will be around DC a lot longer than Scraggly Thom — is a brilliant strategy. Absolutely brilliant.*)
It appears that political lieutenants to vice-president JD Vance and Donald Trump, Jr. have had some sharp words for our senior US senator. Of course, ol’ Thom Tillis had ten times as many to give back to them. Here’s — thanks to a good reliable source — how it apparently all got started:
Okay. Schwartz is sharing info he has about how weak of a candidate Tillis is.
In 2014, Tillis had to split the conservative vote in the primary. (His cronies lured Mark Harris into the field to do just that. If TT had dared to be honest and tell us then what we now know about all this crossing the aisle nonsense he’d have never made it past Greg Brannon.) Tillis still couldn’t score 50 percent of the general election vote against a walking-wounded Democrat incumbent and a pizza delivery guy.
In 2020, Donald Trump – running for reelection — got talked into endorsing Tillis and scared off a viable primary challenger. Tillis still had a closer than expected general election race against a scandal-plagued Democrat nominee. (Still no 50 percent.)
So, Schwartz has his take on things for 2026. He has the ear of two of the most influential guys in the national GOP. It’s certainly worth listening to and considering. But here’s how Tillis reacted:
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., blasted a conservative political consultant with close ties to President Donald Trump’s orbit who questioned whether he could win re-election next year.
Tillis was responding to comments on X by Arthur Schwartz, who said Republicans will “need a new senate candidate in NC” in 2026, pointing to a poll from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling that found Tillis trailing Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper in a hypothetical general election matchup.[…]
Hmmm. Thommy has been telling us crossing the aisle is a “good thing.” (Now, it’s BAD ????)
MORE:
[…] “The president needs a majority to continue his agenda,” Tillis said in an interview Thursday. “Behavior by people like this guy, it’s the thing that’s the single greatest threat to us to deliver the majority next year.”
Tillis said Schwartz “doesn’t have the temperament to be anywhere around the political circles that guarantee that we come back into a majority next year.”
“Arthur Schwartz is a political hack that should probably just keep on being a smart guy and a billionaire, because he’s a s—– political consultant,” he added. […]
Hmmm. An “s” word. *SUPER ????*
MORE:
[…] Tillis won his previous two Senate races in battleground North Carolina by less than 2 percentage points. He formally launched his 2026 re-election campaign last year.
Schwartz responded to NBC News’ social media post about some of Tillis’ critical comments of him by saying on X: “Every Republican senator I know wants Tillis to drop out so we can run a serious candidate who will beat away misfits like Mark Robinson that will get crushed in a general. Maybe Thom should be planning his post senate future instead of reading his mentions on X.”
Robinson, Republicans’ scandal-plagued candidate for governor in North Carolina last year, lost to Democrat Josh Stein by 15 points.
“I have nothing against Tillis; I barely know him,” Schwartz also said on X. “He’s a mediocre candidate with no connection to the Republican base in a critical swing state. If Rs are serious about defending our senate majority we need to start looking for a replacement for Tillis — and we need to start NOW.”
Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate.
Notably, Schwartz helped shepherd Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary through the Senate, a process in which Tillis became the key vote to confirm him. […]
It became crystal clear via drive-by media reports that Tillis was no hero in the Hegseth affair. Also, it appeared that even Majority Leader John Thune is growing weary of *our guy.*
Tillis collaborated with Democrats to try and sink the president’s nominee. He also collaborated with his fellow RINOs Murkowski and Collins. The night before the confirmation vote, GOP leadership considered Tillis a no vote.
What happened? I’ll tell you. Thommy Boy got a spanking from the powers-that-be in Trump World. That’ll change your attitude in a heartbeat.
MORE:
[…] Hegseth faced allegations of alcohol abuse, a sexual assault and the financial mismanagement of organizations that he led, all of which he denied. Ultimately, three other Republican senators joined all Democrats in voting against his nomination, requiring Vice President JD Vance to break a 50-50 tie. […]
Ted Budd figured out the stuff against Hegseth was all crap early on. But Thommy had to *investigate.*
MORE:
[…] It’s not clear what Tillis is referring to regarding Schwartz’s being a billionaire. Asked Thursday whether he stands by his vote to confirm Hegseth, Tillis responded, “100%.” […]
[…] He said Schwartz’s “behind-the-scenes behavior” toward him and other senators “is part of the reason why I put Pete Hegseth’s nomination in the balance.” […]
*Sigh.* Do I really need to whip out my audio and video archive so we can all check out how Thommy Boy treats people *behind the scenes*? *A little compare-and-contrast session, perhaps?*
MORE:
[…] “Let me do due diligence. Don’t tell me how to do my job,” Tillis said. “And Arthur Schwartz should not even be walking the halls of the White House, in my opinion, based on his behavior. … He wants to flex with me, then we are where we are.”
It is not clear what role, if any, Schwartz plays in the Trump administration. He did not respond to requests for comment about his official role or Tillis’ criticisms of his behavior. The White House also did not respond to a request for comment. […]
I think Schwartz’s message was pretty damn clear.
The Scraggly One needs to stop thinking so much about himself and actually start thinking a little more about the country and his constituents. That’s IF he wants to stay in DC. (Most of us, for the record, don’t want him back.)
MORE:
[…]In January, when NBC News reported on an affidavit containing allegations against Hegseth signed by his former sister-in-law, Danielle, Schwartz referred to himself as an adviser to Hegseth and a volunteer for the Trump administration.
Schwartz is a friend of and consultant to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son. He is facilitating the Senate confirmation process for Elbridge Colby, Trump’s nominee to be Hegseth’s undersecretary of defense for policy.
Republican members on the Senate Armed Services Committee grilled Colby this week over his stances on Taiwan, China, Iran and NATO allies. Vance appeared before the committee to endorse Colby, whom he called “a friend.”
Tillis said: “Anything that [Schwartz] represents in Congress, he better not have his fingerprints on it, because I’m a reflexive no to anything he represents. That’s how bad I think he is for the president.”[…]
Wow. Voting against something because Schwartz is associated with it? SO, I guess that legitimates voting against anybody named Tillis or anyone who has been seen in close association with Tillis.
(*Think long and hard before adding your name to that Tillis fundraiser invite.*)
A close adviser to the vice president had to chime in on this:
[…] Andrew Surabian, a Republican strategist affiliated with Vance, also responded to Tillis’ comments, posting on X: “What kind of s—– campaign is @ThomTillis running that he attacks someone who no one in NC has ever heard of over a tweet? While Arthur isn’t a billionaire, he is indeed a smart guy. We have worked together for years overseeing all of Don Jr.’s political activities. Not smart!” […]
No, it ISN’T.
We still apparently have some head-scratching to do over Ted Budd. He may have the most conservative voting record in the NC congressional delegation – which, these days, isn’t saying much — but ol’ Ted seems to be getting advised that “Tillis hill” is a good one to die on:
[…] Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., backed Tillis during an interaction with reporters Thursday in the Capitol.
“I endorsed Thom a long time ago. Look, I’ve known him long before he was ever in this role and supported him. He’s a great partner for the state,” Budd said. “He’s tough, I’ll tell you.” […]
I am getting word that Budd is shedding his old House Freedom Caucus ties like Clark Kent changing clothes to be Superman. A lot of the old Freedom Caucus types say they don’t hear from Ted anymore. Some senators — you can guess who — still liaise with the House Freedom Caucus on a regular basis. Ted doesn’t. (You need help from the House to get stuff passed into law.)
So, are all the fanboys at NCGOP HQ now following Thom Tillis down the road to 
war with the JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr. camps?
A lot of people I know who routinely vote Republican have had such a bellyful of Terrible Thom, they would leave their ballot for Senate blank if he is the nominee. Many who held their nose to vote for Tillis last time were completely turned off when Tillis openly went left when he got back to Washington, and will not be doing that again. There is an old saying “fool me once, shame on you;: fool me twice, shame on me.
I don’t want that dork Cooper as my Senator. We MUST have a GOP candidate who can win and that is NOT Thommy Tillis.
If Tillis is on the ballot, I’ll write in John W. Rhodes.
Next week: Expected announcement of a seasoned conservative candidate to challenge Tillis.
Wake conservative slate ran unopposed.
Wake passed the Abortion Abolition Amendment.
Mecklenburg conservative slate won.
So far at least 3 counties passed the Berger Party Disloyalty Censure Resolution.
.
Former Congressional candidate Brooke McGowan is running for NCGOP State Party Chair – attending as many county GOP conventions as she can. Endorsements from Grassroots organizations are rolling in.
Will Jason postpone the District Conventions like Whatley did in 2023 to censor this opponent?
Jason getting heat for getting paid without committee approval.
Word on the street is the Establishment Old Guard R (GOPe) is nervous.
We don’t need a state chairman who thinks he is all powerful and can on his own pay himself a salary. Having both a paid full time chairman and a paid full time executive director is duplication and being topheavy on administration. Some of the best chairmen in party history like Dave Flahe;rty and Jack Hawke were paid full time chairmen but they also wore the hat of executive Director and their pay was the ED’s salary. Dave and Jack were head and shoulders above Jason as state chairmen, so why does Jason rate a seperate salary as chairman when there is also a paid ED? Hiring Dave and Jack as EDs was voted on by the Central Committee, but Jason does it by imperial decree of himself.
Jason was also a huge failure in the last election. Trump carred NC from the strength of his national campaign, but when one looks at the statewide races where the NCGOP should be pulling its weight, there are too many key failures. Flaherty and Hawke heavily engaged in the governor’s races and it helped. Jason was AWOL in the governor’s race. We had a bad candidate, but anythiing to take the edge off of that problem or even try to do away with that problem could have helped the rest of the ticket. We lost Lt. Governor for the first time in three elections, failed to get a top drawer candidate elected as AG, and lost a key Supreme Court race. We also lost the Superintendant of Public Instruction seat we had held for two terms. Past effective chairmen would jump into such races with press conferences and independent advertising, but under Jason NCGOP was MIA. We must NOT reelect failure.
Another huge problem with Jason is his apparent covering up for Senate RINO boss Phil Berger. Several counties have apparently passed resolutions charging him with party disloyalty. This is a matter that is heard by the State Executive Committee. Why has Jason not set a meeting of the ExCom to handle that? It should be set in May. Is he trying to cover up and protect Berger for Berger flagrant act of party disloyalty????? If he fails to call that meeting or stalls in doing so, he is totally unfit to be state chairman.
Tillis is who recruited Whatley to run for state chairman, and Whatley annointed Jason. If you want a different US Senate candidate, that starts with electing a different state GOP chairman.
If the NCGOP’s excuses for its failures had value, we’d all be filthy rich.
One blunder in the last campaign that probably cost us that Supreme Court seat still bothers me. At the ExCom meeting, I asked Jason how the Judicial Campaign Fund money was spent and he said most of it was just handed to the candidate campaign committees.
One thing that is unique about judicial races is that the candidates and their campaigns have lots of restricitions under Judicial Ethics standards about what they can say about issues and about their opponent. Those issues and attacks on opponents can only be deployed by an independent committee, which the NCGOP Judicial Campaign Fund IS. The official candidate committees are barred from doing so. The ability to run independent campaign expenditures for these races is what makes the Judicial Campaign Fund such a useful tool for the party.
In that Supreme Court race, the Democrat was highly vulnerable on her past as Co-Director of the radical leftwing activist organization Southern Coalition for Social Justice. This angle of attack was never effectively exploited. The official campaign was barred from doing so, and the party which could have done it with its Judicial Campaign Fund decided to send that money instead to where it could not be so used. Our best political ammunition in that race was left unfired. Our party spiked its own gund with foolish deployment of its resources. This was political malpractice of the worst order. The question is who was responsible. The ExCom certainly was not in the loop, but was the Central Committee, or was this a unilateral decision of the state chairman?
Ironically, the Democrats DID do an independent expenditure in the Supreme Court race using issues the candidate herself could not, and that probably won them the election. They created a conservative sounding PAC called North Carolina Families First (Australia has a socially conservative political party that sometimes wins a Senate seat called the Families First Party) and sent out a blizzard of postcards that twisted a ruling by Jedge Griffin to make it sound liberal. The cards were mailed to Republican oriented voters. I got one and my wife got several.
Whoever was responsible for this bad call on use of our Judicial Campaign Fund money should never to allowed to make such decisions in future campaigns. This political malpractice in 2024 has seriously hurt our party.
Tillis will lose to Coop, hands down. Not even close.
Round 1-Tillis
Round 2-Budd
We defeat Tillis and then defeat Budd.
NC GOP needs to come together and rid the party of these worthless politicians who conveniently and routinely vote liberal as often conservative.
Tillis on the 2026 ticket will be a losing ticket handing the seat to dems/Schumer.
Grassroots saw how it was done in 2024; that’s a great game plan and action for 2026. and 2028.
County conventions are convening in March; though those conventions anything but unified and solid.
Thankfully the days of Budd, Tillis, Burr, et als are over.
Fire up the grassroots and let’s roll. Council of State is a critical juncture in 2028, and that begins in 2026. Pls, please keep Mark off the ballots and away from any post.
Tillis loves Ukraine and our tax $$ going there. He can work for Z .
President Trump will make the call.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is in fantasy land. ( I’m not a Tillis fan either)
It is not that simple. President Trump sometimes gets bad info on state races and sometimes good info. He has made some great endorsements and some terrible ones. A good exampoe of a terrible one was Thom Tillis in the 2020 primary. When Trump announced that at one of his NC rallies, the announcement got loudly booed, the only time I can recall of a Trump announcement being booed by his own supporters. Unfortunately, Tillis ally Michael Whatley probably has Trump’s ear on this, so expect a bad endorsement.
Most GOP primary voters look at the candidates themselves more than a Trump endorsement. If the Trump endorsement fits with what voters want in a candidate, they embrace it. If not, they don’t. A good example of that is the 2026 primary for Arizona governor. To the surprise and shock of many, Trump endorsed RINO Karrin Hobbs, who is the main candidate already announced and running. However, when conservative Congressman Andy Biggs filed a statement of interest in running in the primary, the poll taken by instate media found Biggs with two and a half times as much support from GOP voters as Hobbs. The Trump endorsement of a RINO did not move the needle in her favor. Voters looked at the candidates themselves.
Louisiana will have a US Senate primary where conservative State Treasurer John Flemming is challenging RINO US Senator Bill Cassidy. Flemming is a former congressman who was one of the founders of the House Freedom Caucus. As far as I have seen, Trump has not made a pick in that one, but I think Cassidy is toast either way. Tillis needs to be toast in NC, too.
Expect a Tillis move to get his chairman back in the NCGOP through a Whatley engineered Trump endorsement. Delegates should not be fooled. Everybody loves Trump but we have our own eyes and ears as to what is going on with candidates.
We know Trump’s first admin was packed with worthless, useless appointees. Yet to see how this 2nd term goes. I’m NOT voting Tillis b/c Trump may endorse, period. Believe he was a Mark-supporter until he wasn’t.
Thom “Toll Rd” Tillis is arrogant. One reason for his arrogance is probably that he thinks his backers may easily recruit more than one primary candidate to divide the anti Tillis voters. As Brandt correctly pointed out, this was how Tillis won the first time in 2014. Mark Harris was either in on it or an extremely useful idiot. (In case you may not remember, Robin Hayes endorsed Mark Harris in the 2014 primary.) In the 2014 primary, 7 candidates ran not including Toll Rd Tillis. Consider the conservative hatred in SC of Lindsey Graham, but enough candidates always run in the primary, effectively dividing all the anti Graham voters.
Speaking of running more than one Primary challenger to split the “THERE’s NO WAY IN H*LL I’M VOTING FOR TILLIS” vote, the following question posted under a FB post to Andy Nilsson got me UNFRIENDED and BLOCKED by Nilsson:
“In what ways are you more qualified than Don Brown. In other words, why should voters choose Nilsson, not Brown.” Then Don Brown’s bio was posted.
That’s paraphrased because I can’t access the post anymore. 🙂
===> Grassroots conservative and former US Navy JAG Officer, Constitutional attorney Don Brown is running against Thom Tillis.
Need ONE candidate, fully vetted by the grassroots. We CANNOT have 4, 5, 6 running against Tillis. We will get what we’ve always had, another Tillis term until Nov when Coop cleans his clock, and he will. $$ will flow into NC for Coop. He’s lived in DC while Joey was there and well-connected. The SAME $$ that flowed for dems in 2024 to take all the major COS seats.
The divide and conquer method is effective and does help to explain why Toll Rd Tillis is so terribly arrogant. We will see if Toll Rd Tillis effectively steals the primary yet again. If so, I’m not at all convinced Roy Cooper will run.