Sen. Thom Tillis announces he's not seeking reelection, a day after voting against Trump's agenda bill

[ificandream]

Source: CNN

By Michael Williams, CNN
1 minute read
Published 1:41 PM EDT, Sun June 29, 2025

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina announced Sunday he is not seeking reelection next year.

The North Carolina senator’s announcement came a day after he was one of only two Republican holdouts who voted against advancing President Donald Trump’s sweeping agenda bill. Tillis had expressed concern about the impact cuts to Medicaid would have on his constituents, and Trump threatened on Saturday to back a primary challenger to his Senate seat.

Tillis said in his statement that his decision was “not a hard choice” and expressed a desire to be closer with his family.

“I look forward to having the pure freedom to call the balls and strikes as I see fit and representing the great people of North Carolina to the best of my ability,” he said.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/29/politics/thom-tillis-not-seeking-reelection

[bromeando]

1. Tillis

I wouldn't want to work in a corrupt administration.

[dutch777]

2. Cool! Loose cannon on deck you MAGA f***s!

[csusan]

3. My senator didn't vote for him.

I live in North Carolina and always vote democratic. Every year he gets reelected. I have always felt that he is a halfway decent person. We certainly have done worse.
Democrats have been trying to talk our ex governor, Roy Cooper into running against Tillis. I love Cooper but he is 67 or 68. I think that is too old. We need to look for a younger candidate. With Tillis gone, it should be more competitive.
I've never agreed with Tillis but feel he has shown us that he does have some level of decency left.

[yardwork]

7. I can't stand Tillis and apparently most in NC feel the same.

I despise him and his mealy-mouthed excuses. He voted to confirm every one of Trump's appointees - he actually praised RFK, Jr.

Tillis has no moral compass. His voting record is terrible but he's always making weak excuses. He's worse than Susan Collins.

Good riddance.

[barbtries]

9. I think Anderson Clayton might be a great choice.

?si=IWllQ3Ug5z1kZq3t


or Natalie Murdock
https://natalie-murdock.com/meet-natalie/

[ms liberty]

11. Wiley Nickel is already running against Tillis. This willget interesting now.

Tillis has been getting lit up on his fb page for a while now. It's been pretty amusing.

[IronLionZion]

4. Open seat. Let's make NC blue

but yes, anyone who expresses any concern about their constituents gets bullied out in today's MAGA GOP.

It's more efficient if people die faster. It saves so much money.

[SouthBayDem]

5. That Senate seat is cursed.

Source: List of United States senators from North Carolina, Wikipedia

1946: Third-term senator dies

1948: Appointed senator loses election

1949: Newly elected senator dies just about two months into his term

1950: Interim appointed senator loses primary for special election

1953: The senator elected in 1950 dies, and the appointed senator doesn't make it out of the primary to the 1954 regular election

1958: The senator elected in '54 dies.

1972: Incumbent Sen. Everett Jordan (appointed then elected in '58) loses Democratic primary after having been re-elected in '60 and '66. But Jesse Helms (R) wins the election.

And after Helms retired, two one-termers followed (Elizabeth Dole and Kay Hagan). Thom Tillis barely escaped the same fate in 2020.

[blm]

8. If DNC had allowed Jeff Jackson to run in 2020, Dems would be in that seat now.

[moose65]

10. Jackson wasn't running in 2020

He initially was running in 2022, but then he ran for a US House seat and won.

[ms liberty]

12. No, he was running the year Cal Cunningham was the nominee, but

Stepped aside because the party asked him to; they really wanted Cal Cunningham. That was Jeff Jackson's first Senate primary run and it was in 2020. His second time is when he stepped aside for Cheri Beasley to be the nominee, because that's who the party wanted; that was 2022. Then he pivoted and ran for his House seat and won but then the GOP redistricted him out of that seat, so he ran for NC AG and won, and that was 2024.

[blm]

22. Thanks, I was just about to post that.

[underpants]

20. Damn. I had no idea.

That does sound like a curse.

😳

[Polybius]

23. For some reason, the curse didn't effect Helms

He never lost. It was close many times, but close doesn't count.

[oasis]

6. Hopefully, Trump's "wish list" will be on thin ice.

[Clouds Passing]

13. He probably makes his money from medicaid

[JMCKUSICK]

14. "I look forward to having the pure freedom to call the balls and strikes as I see fit and representing the great people

of North Carolina to the best of my ability,”. Because he sure doesn't have that freedom now I suppose?

WTF?

[TBF]

15. Good - it's the only way

here in Texas we had Trump on the phone berating members of the TEXAS LEGISLATURE and promising to primary them if they didn't vote for vouchers. For real, Trump's a gangster. If Tillis goes through with it and votes against the Bullshit Bill, at least he'll be able to sleep at night.

[yellowdogintexas]

21. And now he is pressuring Abbott to call for a mid-term redistricting of the Congressional and the

Texas Legislative maps. I presume he heard about Tarrant County's successful mid-term "redistricting" of our Commissioner's Court precincts and decided to try and force the whole state.

It is of course always hard to tell what Abbott will do, but the Rs on Commissioners Court forced the vote based on the fact that the map was not redrawn in 2021. This is not true about the Statewide maps. So far it has not been included in the agenda, which is said to deal with vetoed bills in the past session.

Trump wants Texas to have a more favorable map in 2026, which means he is worried about some of our R districts flipping ( both Congress and State Lege),

[SSJVegeta]

16. He might as well resign.

[Marcuse]

17. Free at last! He is an apostate who thinks the cult can no longer control his mind/vote.

[LiberalLovinLug]

19. And he'll be replaced by a MAGA cult sycophant

The brave thing would be to stay and resist.
I have zero respect for him and his vote if he follows that with helping to increase Trumps majority

[DownriverDem]

18. This is what they need to do.

Be willing to lose your election or not run again in order to do the right thing.