The surprise announcement comes one day after Tillis opposed a massive bill for Trump’s agenda in the Senate.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., announced Sunday that he would not run for re-election, one day after he drew Donald Trump’s ire for opposing the party’s sweeping domestic policy package.
The surprise decision opens up seat in battleground North Carolina that was already set to be one of the most hotly contested races of the 2026 midterms.
Republicans are now forced to scramble to find a replacement for Tillis in a race that is a top target for Democrats in next year’s midterms.
So I’ve seen a fair number of people claim that Trump outperforming downballot is a sign of some cheating.
Question I have in response is why would the GOP bother to only cheat in the presidential election? Seems like if they were going to go all in on cheating, they’d rig it more soundly in their favor. Maybe they would have let Robinson take a dive because of his particular circumstances, but they would have assured themselves at least a supermajority in the state legislature to compensate.
It seems a simpler explanation is that people didn’t vote Republican, they voted “Trump”. Or also plausible that some of them didn’t vote “Trump” so much as they voted “not the woman of color with a foreign sounding name”.