Thom Tillis: Bolo for YOLO

Yahoo

01-07-2025

We probably should have known something was up with Thom Tillis when he started rocking those bolo ties.
A bolo, the number that looks like a shoelace held together with a little belt buckle, is nothing to wonder about when you see it on a politician from the Southwest. Barry Goldwater, Mr. Arizona, took to it naturally. So did Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the Northern Cheyenne senator. And when you see very un-bolo looking politicians in the West, like Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, slip on the strings, that's an act of conformity, not rebellion.
But Tillis represents North Carolina in the Senate, and while he moved around a lot as a kid, his roots are solidly in the Southeast. Fitting in for him means developing strong opinions about pork barbecue and college basketball, not dressing like Clint Eastwood in 'Coogan's Bluff.' North Carolina has a substantial Cherokee population, and while the bolo has Native roots, it is very much Western wear.
About the same time some weeks ago that I noticed Tillis sporting a bolo, I heard a rumor from a few sources that he wasn't going to seek reelection. I wouldn't say that I dismissed it, but I figured it was mostly wishful thinking from Democrats and MAGA Republicans.
In his two terms, Tillis has been a frustration to both of those groups. Tillis nicked Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan by a point and a half in 2014, one of the furthest reaches of the red wave that washed over the country that year. Six years later in his reelection bid, Tillis, an incumbent Republican running in a presidential election year and whose Democratic opponent got caught in a lurid scandal weeks before the vote, couldn't muster a margin of victory of even 2 full points. It was all evidence to Democrats that they could win that seat back.
Red on the presidential level since 2012, North Carolina has continued to make a habit of electing Democrats statewide, including popular former two-term Gov. Roy Cooper — the same person Democrats were hoping would take on Tillis in 2026. It would be hard to beat Tillis, but a midterm electorate and a popular Democrat? You'd have to call it at least a toss-up. Without Tillis? Not exactly a cakewalk, but definitely a much easier race for Democrats, especially if the cuckoo North Carolina GOP picked a radical nominee.
Which, of course, is exactly what those MAGA Republicans were thinking about in hoping Tillis wouldn't run. He had defied his party on several key points in the Trump era, notably in opposition to President Trump's efforts to restrict trade and in favor of a comprehensive immigration deal during the Biden administration. Tillis, very much a Chamber of Commerce kind of Republican, was anathema to MAGA. He would be primaried for sure, but given the wild and wooly nature of the state GOP — a party that nominated Mark Robinson for governor last year — Tillis might well be able to endure.
With him gone, it would throw open the nominating process to a veritable cable-news greenroom full of Trump-friendly candidates, including potentially the president's own daughter-in-law, Fox News host Lara Trump.
I could understand why MAGA and the Democrats would both want Tillis to not seek a third term, but he was certainly not acting like someone who was going to take a powder.
In January, Tillis sounded like he might be a real problem for the new Trump administration's Cabinet picks. He had expressed plenty of misgivings about some of the choices but ended up walking the plank on all of them: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services, Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and even Pete Hegseth for the Pentagon after working behind the scenes to scuttle his confirmation.
When a politician is eating crow in those quantities, it can only mean one thing: He's trying to keep his job. Like Sen. John Cornyn in Texas, Tillis had all the markings of a normie Republican trying to pick his way through a minefield of a primary without ruining his chances for the general election.
But then in May, something changed. Tillis not only said he would vote against the president's pick to be the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, but shamed his colleagues into opposing Ed Martin because of Martin's involvement in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and subsequent support for the rioters.
What a Republican facing a competitive primary challenge is supposed to do in a case like that is mumble into his lapel something about the president's agenda, vote yes and dream of better days ahead.
But then again, he's also supposed to wear a long, silk necktie, preferably with a modest pattern in a muted hue, not a strap of leather with a knot of metal at the top.
So I should have put it all together: the bolo, the Martin vote, the rumor. This was a guy who was ready to stop being afraid and start causing trouble. In announcing his retirement at the same moment he was announcing his opposition to a reconciliation package that manages to be both fiscally irresponsible and harsh on benefits Tillis, sporting the bolo of course, was embracing his maverick moment.
As a lame duck, he's got a year and a half to vote his conscience and be whatever kind of senator he thinks he should have been all along. Add in some other wild cards like Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and John Curtis (Utah), things could get interesting in a Senate where Republicans can only afford to lose three votes and keep a simple majority.
Then there's Susan Collins of Maine, who automatically became the most vulnerable Senate Republican with Tillis's announcement. She's in the same position in which he found himself prior to Sunday, but in a deep blue state. That makes her primary election easier since there isn't much of a Republican Party in Maine outside of her, but it makes her general election that much harder.
I wonder if she ever thinks about slipping on a bolo herself.
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