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1960-08-30 · United States · Male

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Thomas Roland Tillis ( TIL-iss, born August 30, 1960) is an American businessman and politician who has served as the senior United States senator from North Carolina since 2015. From 2007 to 2015, Tillis served in the North Carolina House of Representatives, of which he was speaker from 2011 to 2015. He is a member of the Republican Party.

Tillis was first elected to the United States Senate in 2014, defeating Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan, and was reelected in 2020. He became the state's senior U.S. senator when Richard Burr retired in 2023. Tillis serves on the Senate Security and Cooperation in Europe; Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Finance; Judiciary; and Veterans' Affairs Committees. He chairs the Subcommittee on Personnel (Senate Armed Services Committee); the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property (Senate Judiciary Committee); and the Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight (Senate Finance Committee).

A moderate Republican, Tillis has voted for proposals such as the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which provided funding to states for red flag laws, and the Respect for Marriage Act, which repealed the Defense of Marriage Act. He supports a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and initially opposed President Donald Trump's national emergency declaration to divert funding to a border wall.

On June 29, 2025, Tillis announced that he would not seek reelection to a third term in 2026.

Early life and education

Tillis was born in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Margie and Thomas Raymond Tillis, a boat draftsman. He was the oldest boy among six children, with three older sisters. By the time he was 17, his family had moved 20 times, living in New Orleans and Nashville, among other places; Tillis never attended the same school in consecutive years. Tillis, his father, and his two brothers are all named Thomas Tillis. One of his brothers, Thomas "Rick" Tillis, served in the Tennessee House of Representatives.

Following his 1978 graduation from high school, Tillis left home to get a job. He then attended Chattanooga State Community College before receiving a Bachelor of Science in technology management from the University of Maryland University College in 1996.

Business career

After graduating from Antioch High School in 1978, Tillis worked at Provident Life and Accident Insurance Co. in Chattanooga, Tennessee, helping computerize records in conjunction with Wang Laboratories, a computer company in Boston. Wang eventually hired Tillis to work in its Boston office. He spent two and a half years there before being transferred back to Chattanooga, and then Atlanta. In 1990, he was recruited to work for accounting and consulting firm Price Waterhouse. In 1996, Tillis was promoted to partner. In 1998, he and his family moved to Cornelius, North Carolina.

PricewaterhouseCoopers sold its consulting arm to IBM in 2002 and Tillis went to IBM as well. Tillis began his political career in 2002 in Cornelius, as he pushed for a local bike trail and was elected to the town's park board. He ran for town commissioner in 2003 and tied for second place.

North Carolina House of Representatives

After a two-year term as town commissioner, Tillis ran for the General Assembly in 2006. He defeated incumbent John W. Rhodes in the Republican primary and went on to win the election unopposed. Tillis was reelected unopposed in 2008, 2010 and 2012. He formally left IBM in 2009. He was campaign chairman for the House Republican Caucus in 2010. After Republicans won a majority in the North Carolina House for the first time since 1998, Tillis was chosen as Speaker, the fifth Republican to hold the role, and was unanimously reelected in 2013. Governing magazine named Tillis and North Carolina Senate President pro tempore Phil Berger "GOP Legislators to Watch" in 2011.

The state house overseen by Tillis restructured the state's tax code, redrew North Carolina's congressional districts, and passed legislation to sunset existing state rules and regulations and limit new regulations to ten years.

After Republican Pat McCrory was elected governor in 2012, Tillis presided over legislation reducing early voting days, invalidating ballots cast outside one's precinct, and requiring specific kinds of photo ID in order to vote. A top Tillis aide had previously requested data on photo ID ownership by race, which showed that black people would be significantly more likely than white people to become unable to vote if such legislation passed. Tillis said he requested the data to ensure the bill would not violate federal laws against discrimination. The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the restrictions, writing in its opinion that they "target African Americans with almost surgical precision".

In 2014, 14 people protesting cuts to the earned income tax credits program and Tillis's refusal to expand Medicaid were arrested after staging a sit-in in his office.

U.S. Senate

Elections

2014

In 2014, Tillis announced that he would not seek reelection to the state House, instead running for U.S. Senate against first-term Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan. In the Republican primary, he was endorsed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, then-North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The New York Times called Tillis a "favorite of the party establishment."

During his primary campaign, Tillis skipped four candidate forums and one of three televised primary debates in an effort to avoid lesser-known rivals, and to cement his image as the "inevitable nominee". Tillis was criticized during the Republican primary for raising money from groups lobbying the state House. On May 6, he won the nomination with 45.68% of the vote over Greg Brannon and Mark Harris, described as a victory for the Republican establishment over the insurgent Tea Party movement.

Tillis was announced the winner of the Senate race on November 4. He received 48.8% of the vote, the lowest winning total in North Carolina history for a U.S. Senate candidate; Hagan garnered 47.3%.

During the 2014 campaign, the Tillis campaign and the North Carolina Republican Party paid $345,000 to the data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica to microtarget voters. The company later touted their work on Tillis's campaign, including "psychographic profiles for all voters in North Carolina" that enabled "tailored messages" for particular audiences. Tillis's connections to the firm were scrutinized after revelations that its data had been illicitly harvested from Facebook.

In the 2014 election, Tillis received $22,888,975 in "dark money", which constituted 81% of non-party outside spending in support. OpenSecrets placed the final cost of outside spending at $8.5 million for Hagan and $35.5 million attacking Tillis, and $13.7 million for Tillis and $20.9 million attacking Hagan, placing the totals by candidate at $44 million for Hagan, and $34.6 million for Tillis.

2020

Tillis ran for and won reelection in 2020. He was challenged in the Republican primaries by conservative businessman Garland Tucker, who spent $1.3 million to finance his campaign before dropping out in December 2019, after Trump endorsed all incumbent Republican senators up for election in 2020, including Tillis. Tillis won the March 3 Republican primary and faced Democratic nominee Cal Cunningham in the November general election. Cunningham led Tillis in the polls for most of the year. In October 2020, Cunningham acknowledged having an extramarital affair and his lead in the polls was reduced to less than two points before election day. Tillis received 48.7% of the vote to Cunningham's 46.9%.

Tenure

After the release of the Access Hollywood tape during the 2016 United States presidential election, Tillis called Trump's comments "indefensible". According to Politico, he "began the Trump era by negotiating with Democrats on immigration and co-authoring legislation to…