Thom Tillis, a Republican, is running for U.S. Senate in North Carolina. He describes
himself as an advocate for North Carolina’s rich military tradition, veterans, and men and
women in uniform.
After high school, Tillis left home to get a job, because “he wasn’t wired to go to college."
He eventually did attend Chattanooga State Community College and subsequently
received a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland evening school. Prior to
entering politics, he was a consultant at PriceWaterhouse.
In 2006, he was elected to the North Carolina House. Under his leadership, the state
house passed voter-identification legislation, which was struck down by an appeals court
for unconstitutionally "target[ing] African Americans with almost surgical precision."
Tillis was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2014. During the campaign, Tillis paid $30,000 to
the data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, which was later implicated for fraud in
conjunction with Facebook. Tillis voted in favor of Trump’s “national emergency” declaration
for the border wall with Mexico. He denies the reality of Climate Change and urged the
President to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Tillis has an A+ rating from the NRA. and
has received over $4,418,012 in NRA donations. In 2012, Tillis supported a constitutional
amendment to define marriage as occurring between one man and one woman. Dissenting
with Trump's ban on transgender individuals in the military, Tillis said "I would have
significant objections to any proposal that calls for a specific group of American patriots
currently serving in uniform to be removed from the military."
Thom lives with his wife Susan in Huntersville and are the parents of two grown
children.
