The first of what are expected to be multiple challengers during the 2026 election cycle to Republican U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (pictured here during a Senate committee hearing) announced his intention to run this week. (Photo: Screengrab from Senate.gov video feed)
Andy Nilsson, a retired businessman and former candidate for lieutenant governor, is set to launch a Senate campaign challenging vulnerable incumbent Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, kicking off what will be one of the closest-watched races in the country in 2026.
Nilsson filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to establish a campaign committee Tuesday, a development first noted by political observer Andrew Dunn. He also appears to be in the process of creating a campaign website, whose preview text states he “will work for Conservative policies in the United States Senate.”
The longtime Republican’s campaign kickoff comes early in the primary calendar, just over two months after the 2024 election and more than a year before the primary takes place. Republican Senator Ted Budd did not announce his candidacy in the 2022 election until April of 2021.
The decision to move early could be influenced by Nilsson’s low profile among North Carolina voters — he has not run for statewide office since 2000, when he lost a bid for the Republican lieutenant governor nomination by about 45% of the vote. A former furniture manufacturer and current assistant football coach at R.J. Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem, he also worked previously on campaigns of former Senator Richard Burr and former Charlotte mayor and three-time gubernatorial candidate Richard Vinroot.
While most primary challenges to Tillis will likely come from his right, it is unclear whether Nilsson will take that tack, as he has criticized the rightward drift of the party for decades. In 2019, he was among a group of Republicans who held a “shadow convention” in opposition to Trump, according to the Charlotte Observer, calling to “preserve the Reagan-Bush legacy of the Republican Party.” Nilsson briefly tried to launch a centrist political party in 2000 after his failed primary bid, the Hendersonville Times-News reported, advocating “toleration and inclusion” over “religious divisiveness” while retaining fiscally conservative principles.
According to Dunn, Nilsson will launch his campaign before the end of January in Wake County.
As the only Republican up for election in a 2024 swing state, Tillis is described as the second-most vulnerable Republican in the 2026 Senate elections by the Cook Political Report after Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. Among the Democrats observers say could challenge him is former two-term governor Roy Cooper, who has been cagey about specific plans but has indicated he is not done with politics.
In addition to being a top target of national Democrats in the upcoming election, Tillis has also faced considerable fire from his right flank. He is a favorite target of former Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who called him a “lily-livered, jelly-backed, spineless toad” during his gubernatorial 2024 campaign, and criticized him for taking stances against other Republicans. Robinson is also viewed as a possible challenger to Tillis.
While in office, Tillis has cast himself as a pragmatist rather than someone always in lockstep with the Trump wing of the GOP. He was one of a few Senate Republicans who backed funding for Ukraine against the wishes of the isolationist wing of the party and he was a staunch opponent of efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, calling Jan. 6 a “dark day in American history that should never be repeated” in 2021.
His efforts to portray himself as a moderate have drawn him ire from both Republicans who see him as an obstacle to the party’s agenda and Democrats who say his voting record doesn’t match his rhetoric — he voted with Trump’s views more than 90% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.