“If Anyone Needed a Sign That Tillis Is Vulnerable in a Primary, This Ad Is a Flashing Red Light”
In case you missed it: vulnerable Senator Thom Tillis started a $2.2 million ad buy today to try to fend off a Republican primary challenge from conservative businessman Garland Tucker — a staggering sum to spend this early in the cycle that amounts to half the cash on hand Tillis’ campaign reported at the end of June.
After his “Olympic-gold flip-flop” cost him credibility with North Carolina GOP voters earlier this year, Tillis has failed to stabilize his re-election campaign. In a clear sign of his struggles, Tillis was booed twice at a GOP rally headlined by President Trump last week, and recent polling shows Tillis has an “under water favorability even with GOP primary voters” and is losing ground. After the news broke that President Trump’s sham emergency declaration would cost North Carolina military construction projects $80 million, Tillis has faced furious press backlash in state for caving to partisan political pressure and jeopardizing military funding for his state and America’s national security.
“Senator Tillis is struggling with voters across party lines because he cares more about himself and furthering his own political career than doing what’s right, and this massive new ad buy makes clear that his campaign is already hitting the panic button more than a year out from Election Day,” said DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Charlotte Observer: Tillis’ campaign ad lets Trump make case for his re-election: ‘He’s been a warrior’
Jim Morrill
September 17, 2019
Key Points:
- Tillis’ campaign said it’s spending $2.2 million on the ad, which will run through the March 3 primary. That represents half of the $4.4 million that the campaign had on hand at the end of June.
- The ad… appears designed to blunt criticism from within his own party.
- When Tillis was introduced at Trump’s Fayetteville rally last week for Republican Dan Bishop, some in the audience booed. And polls have shown him in trouble with some GOP voters.
- A Morning Consult Poll in April showed him with the second-lowest approval among Republicans of any GOP senator facing re-election. And an August survey by Public Policy Polling showed 34% of Republican voters with a favorable view of Tillis compared with 38% with an unfavorable view.
- “If anyone needed a sign that Tillis is vulnerable in a primary, this ad is a flashing red light,” said analyst Jennifer Duffy of the non-partisan Cook Political Report. “But Trump’s endorsement carries a lot of weight with the base and the early deployment of significant advertising dollars might mitigate the threat posed by Tillis’ primary opponents. At the same time, it will make it more difficult for him to move toward the center in the general election.”
- Tillis faces primary challenges from Pitt County farmer Sandy Smith and retired Raleigh businessman Garland Tucker.
- Carter Wrenn, Tucker’s consultant, dismissed Tillis’s new ad. “He’s collapsed in the polls with Republicans and now he’s trying to tell them that he loves Trump. That’s just Washington politics,” Wrenn said. “The problem Tillis has is primary voters know what his records is. They see it as phony.”
- Tucker has sought to capitalize on Tillis’ early opposition to Trump’s emergency declaration to build a wall on the Mexican border. Tillis made the case in a February column in the Washington Post. He later reversed himself and voted for the declaration.
Read the full story here.
The Hill: Tillis places big ad buy as he faces wealthy GOP challenger
Reid Wilson
September 12
Key Points:
- Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) will spend $2.2 million on television and radio advertisements before his state’s March 3 primary, an early hint that his campaign may be worried about his standing among Republican voters.
- Tillis faces a challenge from Garland Tucker, a retired venture capitalist who has put at least $700,000 of his own money into his campaign, according to FEC filings made in July. That investment has likely grown since the last reporting deadline.
- The advertisements, beginning more than a year before November’s election, are another sign that Tillis is among the most vulnerable senators up for reelection in 2020.
- The ad buy represents a substantial chunk of Tillis’s available cash — his campaign reported $4.3 million in the bank as of the end of June, the last time candidates were required to disclose their fundraising to the Federal Election Commission.
- Tillis appeared at a rally with Trump this week in Fayetteville, the day before a special election that sent Rep.-elect Dan Bishop (R) to Washington. But, in a potential sign of his troubles ahead, some Republicans at the Trump rally booed when Tillis took the stage.
Read the full story here.
