Republican Tillis expects GOP 'bloodbath' in midterm elections

Republicans need to be willing to break from the White House to win elections in North Carolina, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis told reporters in Raleigh this week, alleging that his party often caves to the executive branch when in power. 

Taking an independent stance, he says, would endear the party to unaffiliated voters and help GOP candidates win in this battleground state. 

Tillis made the remarks during a discussion with reporters at a clean energy conference Thursday, which was the first day of early voting in North Carolina. 

Tillis isn’t running for reelection this year. He ended his bid after voting against President Donald Trump’s signature tax-and-spend bill, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill — a move that prompted Trump to find someone else to run for his seat. Tillis objected to provisions in the bill that would significantly cut federal funding for Medicaid, shifting more costs to states.

He thinks Republicans’ support for the bill — and other Trump policies — will doom Republican candidates in the Nov. 3 election. 

“What we have to do in the state is resonate with unaffiliated voters and have some separation from the president when you legitimately have a difference of opinion,” Tillis told reporters.

Unaffiliated voters make up the state’s biggest voting bloc. A WRAL/WSOC Poll, released this week, showed that only 26% of independent voters approved of the job Trump was doing in office. Independents were also gravitating toward the Democratic nominee in the race to replace Tillis, the poll showed.

Disapproval in Trump could hurt Republican candidates who have run in support of Trump’s agenda — particularly policies that have affected the economy, political analysts say. 

The WRAL/WSOC Poll shows Republican Michael Whatley trailing Democratic nominee Roy Cooper by 14 points. Trump endorsed Whatley, the Republican National Committee’s former chairman.

Whatley has themed his campaign largely around supporting Trump’s policies and agenda, and it appears that approach has turned off some voters. 

“We're seeing independents and moderates both breaking for the Democrat here by over 30 points, which is significant," said Ken Alper, president of Survey USA, which conducted the poll.

Although Whatley’s full embrace of Trump doesn’t appear to have helped his chances of winning a U.S. Senate seat — and Tillis’ public break with Trump ended his own Senate career — it’s possible there’s a middle ground for Republicans moving forward.

U.S. Rep. Tim Moore, another North Carolina Republican, told WRAL in an interview Thursday that he thinks Tillis could’ve handled his disputes with the president differently. In his book, Tillis describes multiple expletive-laden conversations and text messages with Trump, often critical of some of Trump’s top advisors.

“There may have been occasions where I've had a different opinion from the president,” Moore said, “and I perhaps go about expressing that a little differently as well.”

But while the new WRAL/WSOC poll shows independent and moderate voters largely backing Cooper, and broadly unhappy with Trump’s job performance since returning to office, the Whatley campaign still sees a path to victory.

Whatley’s campaign says he is canvassing the state focusing on undecided voters, who he thinks can be the difference in a state where statewide races are often won by narrow margins.

“Undecided voters who break late decide the election in North Carolina, and the majority of those late-breakers typically go Republican,” said DJ Griffin, a Whatley campaign spokesperson. 

In his new book, “How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents,” Tillis suggested that Whatley’s chances of replacing him in the Senate may have been doomed from the start, since politics demanded Whatley align himself with Trump policies.

"If we can convince Republicans just to be good governing bodies, then we win majorities,” Tillis said. “Until then, it's just going to be political ping-pong of the American people rejecting the last people who aren't listening to what the voters were really saying in the prior election.”