After President Trump threatened to have him primaried for opposing the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill,” a Republican senator in one of the most competitive seats nationwide says he is not going to run for another term.
Senator Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) announced on Sunday that he will not seek reelection in the 2026 midterm cycle, after he voted on Saturday against a procedural motion to advance the GOP’s mammoth tax and spending package.
“As many of my colleagues have noticed over the last year, and at times even joked about, I haven’t exactly been excited about running for another term,” Tillis said in a statement.
“That is true since the choice is between spending another six years navigating the political theatre and partisan gridlock in Washington or spending that time with the love of my life Susan, our two children, three beautiful grandchildren, and the rest of our extended family back home,” he added.
“It’s not a hard choice, and I will not be seeking re-election.”
Tillis made the announcement after he voted against the GOP megabill because of its provisions that would cut Medicaid benefits by creating new work requirements for able-bodied adults. Democrats have hammered Republicans on the Medicaid provisions, accusing them of cutting health care for the poor to finance tax cuts for the rich. Republicans have countered by saying that they are trying to strengthen the program and rein in wasteful spending.
“I did my homework on behalf of North Carolinians, and I cannot support this bill in its current form. It would result in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina, including our hospitals and rural communities,” Tillis said.
“This will force the state to make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands in the expansion population, and even reducing critical services for those in the traditional Medicaid population.”
Senate Republicans voted 51–49 to advance the “big, beautiful bill,” with Tillis and Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) joining Democrats in voting against it. The bill is now up for debate, and amendments to it will be voted on before a final vote on its passage, which is expected to take place on Monday.
Trump raged against Tillis on Truth Social, calling him out in multiple social media posts for voting against the Republican spending plan. Most notably, Trump said he would meet with potential candidates interested in running against Tillis in a GOP primary, without naming any.
“Numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the Primary against ‘Senator Thom’ Tillis. I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks, looking for someone who will properly represent the Great People of North Carolina and, so importantly, the United States of America,” Trump said.
Running in a primary against a Trump-endorsed challenger would have been an expensive and difficult fight for Tillis. The race for Tillis’s seat was already set to be one of the most hard-fought and costly of the next midterm cycle — one that Democrats see as a potential flip given the likelihood of a midterm backlash against Trump.
The “big, beautiful bill” would codify Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, saving taxpayers $4.5 trillion, and it includes other conservative priorities such as border security and energy. The Senate version of the legislation is projected to add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over ten years, nearly a trillion more than the House GOP’s version, according to the latest Congressional Budget Office analysis.
Critics have questioned the CBO’s methodology because it assumes that the expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will lapse at the end of the year. Without that assumption, a methodology called the “current policy baseline” puts its cost at an estimated $508 billion, the CBO said in a separate analysis.