Thom Tillis

State Rep. Tillis (2011)

After a two-year term as town commissioner, Tillis ran for the General Assembly in 2006. He defeated incumbent John W. Rhodes in the Republican primary, and went on to win the election unopposed.[5] Tillis was reelected unopposed in 2008, 2010 and 2012. He formally left IBM in 2009.[4] He was campaign chairman for the House Republican Caucus in 2010. In that year's elections, Republicans won a majority in the North Carolina House for the first time in almost 20 years. The House Republican Caucus selected Tillis to be the next Speaker over Paul Stam.[10] When the legislative session opened on January 26, 2011, he was elected the fifth Republican Speaker of the North Carolina House in the state's history.[11]

In May 2011, Governing magazine named Tillis one of 17 "GOP Legislators to Watch" on the basis of such perceived qualities as leadership, ambition, and political potential.[12] In the 2012 elections, the Republican Party added nine seats to its majority, winning 77 of the 120 House seats.[13] In January 2013, Tillis was unanimously reelected Speaker of the House by the Republican Caucus. The state house overseen by Tillis enacted a complete restructuring of the state's tax code, including a reduction of personal and business income taxes, elimination of the estate tax, and a cap on the gas tax.[14] It passed legislation to sunset existing state rules and regulations and limit new regulations to a ten-year duration, unless renewed by the state government.[15] Under Tillis's leadership, the state house also passed voter-identification legislation that was temporarily blocked by a federal appeals court.[16]

In keeping with an earlier promise to serve only four terms (eight years) in the state house, Tillis announced that he would not run for reeelection to the legislature.[17] Instead, he ran for U.S. Senate against first-term incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan. In the Republican primary, he was endorsed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush,[18] then-North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory,[19] former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney,[20] and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.[21] The New York Times called Tillis a "favorite of the party establishment."[22]

During his primary campaign, Tillis skipped four candidate forums in an effort to avoid lesser-known rivals in the crowded field, and to cement his image as the "inevitable nominee". But he participated in several televised debates with the four major Republican primary candidates.[23][24] According to the National Journal, Tillis was criticized during the Republican primary campaign for raising money for his Senate campaign from groups lobbying the state house, which is allowed because he is running for federal office.[25][26]

In the May 6 primary, Tillis won the Republican nomination with 45.68% of the vote to his nearest challenger's 27.15%.[27][28]

Tillis was announced the winner of the Senate race at approximately 11:30 PM on November 4. He received 48.82% of the vote, the lowest winning total in North Carolina history for a U.S. Senate candidate.[29][30]

During the campaign, Tillis paid $30,000 to Cambridge Analytica, a data analysis firm.[31] The North Carolina Republican Party paid the firm $150,000 during the campaign.[31] Cambridge Analytica touted its role in Tillis's campaign on its website and listed the race as a case study.[31] Tillis paid Cambridge Analytica $25,000 in 2015.[32] In March 2018, Facebook banned Cambridge Analytica after reports that the firm had illicitly obtained information about Facebook users.[32] Questions were raised as to whether the Tillis campaign benefitted from Cambridge Analytica's illicit activities and whether Cambridge Analytica's role in the race was enough to swing the election.[32][31][33]

Tillis is running for reelection in 2020. He won the March 3 Republican primary and will face Democratic nominee Cal Cunningham in the November general election.[34]

Tillis opposes abortion.[37] In 2011, while speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, he helped the House pass a law, later struck down by the courts, requiring abortion providers to perform an ultrasound on women seeking abortions.[38][39] When the law was struck down, Tillis said that the ultrasound provision was "the most critical part of the law" and that the decision should be appealed.[39] In 2012 he voted to defund Planned Parenthood in North Carolina.[40][41]

In 2014, a Tillis spokesman told The Washington Post that Tillis would support a personhood bill if it were brought to the Senate floor, but only if abortion would continue to be legal "in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in danger" and if women would continue to "have access to contraceptives."[42]

In October 2017, Tillis condemned the genocide of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar and called for a stronger response to the crisis.[43]

Tillis criticized Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's wide-ranging purges of political opponents following a failed 2016 coup.[44]

Tillis opposes the Affordable Care Act and voted to repeal it.[45] He has said that health care is "not a government responsibility" and that he would "do everything in his power to overturn Obamacare."[46]

In 2018, Tillis introduced legislation forcing insurers to cover patients with preexisting conditions, but a loophole would have left most patients with preexisting conditions without coverage.[47] Within hours of introducing the bill, Tillis backtracked and pulled his support for his own legislation.[48]

Tillis opposes public health regulations such as requiring restaurant employees to wash their hands. He believes the regulations are unnecessary and that restaurants' hand-washing policies should instead be publicized so that people can decide for themselves.[49][50][51][52]

Following Trump's cancellation of Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ("DACA") executive order, Tillis announced his intention to propose legislation to give illegal immigrants who arrived before January 1, 2012, and are under age 16 ("Dreamers") legal status and allow them to remain in the US for five years with a pathway to citizenship. The proposal would grant high school graduates without a serious criminal record conditional immigration status for a five-year period. During that time, if they earn a higher-education degree, serve in the military or stay employed, they could apply for permanent residency and eventually citizenship. About 2.5 million DREAMers would be eligible.[53]

In February 2019, Tillis authored an op-ed in the Washington Post opposing Trump's national emergency declaration concerning the southern border in order to use funding from Department of Defense to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico.[54] In March 2019, he reiterated his opposition, saying, "I cannot justify providing the executive with more ways to bypass Congress."

Tillis faced pressure from Trump and conservatives to support the emergency declaration, and some conservatives proposed a primary challenge against Tillis in 2020.[55][56] A week after he made his statement reiterating his opposition, Tillis reversed his position and voted in favor of Trump's declaration.[57][58][59]

In 2014, Tillis opposed increasing the federal minimum wage.[60][61] He suggested the government should not set a minimum wage, labeling it an "artificial threshold." "I have serious concerns with the discussion around minimum wage because it drives up costs and it could harm jobs," Tillis said after making his bid official at the State Board of Elections in Raleigh. "Obviously we want people to be paid a wage that could help make ends meet, but when you increase artificially the cost of labor to do a job, then oftentimes those jobs will just go away."[60]

Tillis has faced some blowback for comments on welfare he made in October 2011, which Washington Post columnist Greg Sargeant said evoked Romney's "47%" remarks. In a video, Tillis said we have to "divide and conquer" some people receiving public assistance by getting those who really need it to shame others who "choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government."[62]

Tillis rejects the scientific consensus on climate change and has said that climate change "is not a fact."[63] In 2015, he voted against an amendment saying human activity is a contributor to climate change[64] but in 2018 he said human activity was a contributing factor.[65] In a 2018 interview, Tillis said he had shifted his position and now believed climate change is happening,[66] but remains unclear about whether he agrees with scientists that it is human-caused.[67]

In 2017, Tillis was one of 22 senators to sign a letter[68] to President Donald Trump urging him to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement.

In February 2019, in response to reports that the EPA intended not to set drinking water limits for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) as part of an upcoming national strategy to manage those chemicals, Tillis was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Acting EPA Administrator Andrew R. Wheeler calling on the agency "to develop enforceable federal drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS, as well as institute immediate actions to protect the public from contamination from additional per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)."[69]

Tillis has an "A+" rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA). In 2014, the NRA endorsed him in his senate race.[70] As of 2017, Tillis was the fourth most funded recipient of the NRA, totaling $4,418,012 in donations.[71]

In response to the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, Tillis voted for two Republican-backed bills, neither which passed the Senate. One bill would have expanded background checks and the other would have delayed gun sales for 72 hours for individuals on the terrorist watchlist while they were investigated by federal authorities. He also rejected two Democratic-sponsored bills, including the Feinstein Amendment which would have banned any individual on the terrorist watchlist from purchasing a gun and a second that would have required background checks at gun shows and during online sales.[72]

Tillis opposes net neutrality. In 2017, Tillis co-sponsored the Restoring Internet Freedom Act, a bill to nullify the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order.[73]

In March 2017, Tillis voted for the Broadband Consumer Privacy Proposal that removed the FCC's internet privacy rules and allowed internet service providers to sell customers' browsing history without their permission.[74]

In May 2020, Tillis voted against an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to bar warrantless surveillance of web browser history.[75]

In 2012, then-Speaker Tillis played a leading role in pushing for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as occurring between one man and one woman. The measure ultimately passed.[76][77] Following the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same sex marriage, Tillis announced that he would oppose the ruling in his role as Speaker. This stance was relatively unique among major elected North Carolina Republican officials at the time, as even then-Governor Pat McCrory accepted the ruling.[78]

In 2015, shortly after taking office in the Senate, Tillis voted in favor of an amendment to a non-binding resolution that would allow same-sex married couples living in states that do not recognize same-sex marriage to have access to government resources.[79][80]

In January 2018, Tillis was one of thirty-six Republican senators to sign a letter to Trump requesting he preserve and modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement.[81]