Beware the Middle Finger Farewell Tour
Thom Tillis may not be running again, but he’s inadvertently going to make sure John Cornyn loses his primary
What was the defining event of 2017, President Trump’s first year in office? I’ll bet many agree with me when I suggest the following:
Rather than use the grainy monitor image of former Arizona Senator John McCain voting “no” on the “skinny repeal” of Obamacare, I’ve used a clearer version of yet another time he sent something down in flames with a “thumbs down.” To the propagandists in the media and millions of leftists who thought McCain was the biggest racist alive when he challenged Barack Obama for the presidency in 2008, it did not matter that he had campaigned against Obama’s signature legislative achievement for a decade. He stuck it to Trump, and that was all that mattered.
McCain was on what I’ve taken to calling the “middle finger farewell tour.”
He had been elected for the final time in 2016, and by a much higher margin than Trump’s 3.5% margin of victory over Hillary Clinton with more than 6% of the vote going to minor party candidates. At 80, McCain was a long shot to run in 2022 at the age of 86, and the bad blood of the campaign trail remained between Trump and McCain until the latter died on August 25, 2018. McCain’s abandonment of his own promises to shred Obamacare has never been forgotten, nor was his genuine effort to undermine Trump day in and day out.
My friend David Clements likes to talk about all the various “influencers” who get their turn with the “ring of power,” and inevitably fail to conduct themselves accordingly - thereby forcing the ring into the grasp of another person eagerly awaiting his shot at glory. Right now, the latest “middle finger farewell tour” is being carried out by Thom Tillis, who I profiled a year ago when he announced he was retiring rather than face off against Roy Cooper this fall for what looks to be an extremely vulnerable GOP Senate seat:
Based on the massively expanded Democrat margins from their two most valuable counties, Trump would have lost North Carolina by over 106,000 votes in 2024 if not for the heavy Republican trend present in the outlying 98 counties (collectively). Tillis would have to first navigate the 2026 Democrat midterm strength, if it returns to normal political dynamics, then address his low margins, which have relied on not getting absolutely demolished in Wake and Mecklenburg and getting just enough out of the Trumpy areas of the state, who will now have very little incentive to get out the vote in record numbers in a midterm, which always feature lower turnout than those run in conjunction with Presidential races.
Tillis’s political career is over. In this retirement, just as we will see with Don Bacon’s retirement from the U.S. House, new risk is presented in that there is no longer an incumbent in the seat. One of the biggest indicators that a seat may flip, which I’m finding in my U.S. House forecasts for 2026, is a retirement or death forcing the seat open. That means President Trump is going to have to get behind a dynamic candidate that can fend off the Democrats once again in North Carolina, which only remains viable for Democrats because of the corruption of the metro areas and a steady influx of urbanites from the Northeast.
Tillis has been busy wrecking as many things as possible. He’s for the SAVE America Act but sorry, he doesn’t want to bend any rules to get it there because “principles” or something. Now he doesn’t want to confirm Kari Lake as U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica:
Given Lake’s history? You mean her history of stepping out of the mainstream media spotlight, running a campaign against the sitting Secretary of State for Arizona’s top office, and coming up short because Maricopa County made sure the voting machines all broke down on Election Day in GOP areas, while making the mail-in ballot magic work like usual. You’re damn right she was mad about it; so was I, and millions of other Americans watching a repeat of the 2020 quasi election.
Thom Tillis can act this way because he never has to be reelected again. He quit. Now Michael Whatley has an uphill climb, although I think he has better odds than what you’ll find on Polymarket, and enough time to get it right:
John Cornyn, the Senator from Texas fighting for his political life, will be 80 in 2032, the year he would need to defend his Senate seat should he keep it this year against Ken Paxton and the Democrat, James Talarico, looking to win a statewide race in Texas for the first time in 32 years. I suppose Cornyn could play his cards like Chuck Grassley, now 92 years old, but the money would strongly suggest this will be Cornyn’s last time in the saddle.
We’ve been here before:
Cornyn’s worst years for Constitutional voting, out of the 23 he’s been in D.C., came from 2017 through 2020, coincided perfectly with President Trump’s entire first term. It turns out it’s very easy to play “conservative” when a Democrat is in the White House and unwilling to make nice with the GOP. Now, with Trump back in town, Cornyn is limp on the SAVE America Act and blames the filibuster for the lack of action, as if there is no way around it.
The sad thing is, this isn’t even an endorsement of Ken Paxton.
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