Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina has slowly been building a reputation as something of a “deal maker” in the upper chamber. He’s been recognized for “working across the aisle” (as the media likes to say), cutting deals with Democrats to get contentious legislation passed. But that attitude has led him to compromise on some of his previously held conservative positions. It’s not that he’s turned into a southern, male version of AOC, but he’s endorsed a few uncharacteristic positions since arriving in the Senate more than seven years ago. And now, Republicans in his home state seem to be fed up with what they see as a failure to toe the conservative line. At the North Carolina GOP convention yesterday, Republican delegates voted to censure Tillis. (AP)

Republican delegates in North Carolina voted Saturday at their annual convention to censure Thom Tillis, the state’s senior U.S. senator, for supporting policies they said violate key tenets of the GOP platform.

As Sen. Tillis has gained influence in Congress for his willingness to work across the aisle, his record on LGBTQ+ rights, immigration and gun violence has raised concerns among some state Republicans that the senator has strayed from conservative values.

Several delegates in Greensboro criticized Tillis, who has held his seat in the Senate since 2015, for his work last year on the Respect For Marriage Act, which enshrined protections for same-sex and interracial marriages in federal law.

Tillis has been on thin ice with conservatives for a while now. In 2020 he drew a primary challenger who was well-funded and might have unseated him if Trump hadn’t endorsed the incumbent. He then went on to eke out a reelection victory by less than two points.

As I mentioned above, the issues that have his state party upset with him aren’t all that particularly radical in the modern era but are still being viewed as being out of step. He’s being criticized for “endorsing LGBTQ policies,” but he’s not out there endorsing trans surgery for kids. He came out in support of legal gay marriage and interracial marriage. Are we really still fighting a civil war over this? Gay marriage has been in place across the country for quite a while now. And do we really still have people who want to outlaw interracial marriage in 2023? Seriously? If you’re trying to feed Democrats and progressives ammunition for their endless cries about “systemic racism everywhere,” I can’t think of a better way to do it.

Tillis is also being hit on the home front over Second Amendment rights. But, again, he’s not calling for gun confiscation or assault weapon bans. He endorsed a red flag law. Yes, I realize even that is controversial, but he’s still far better on this issue than virtually any Democrat you can find, outside of possibly Joe Manchin.

The one area where the NC GOP really had a beef with Tillis was immigration. Tillis had originally opposed some of Donald Trump’s border policies, including the spending of military funding to build the border wall. Particularly given the current situation with the Biden Border Crisis, that’s really not something you want to have on your record. But he later retracted his opposition and came mostly in line with mainstream Republican positions on immigration.

Of course, this entire censure procedure was largely political theater. The state party can’t remove Tillis from office and he isn’t up for reelection until 2026. Of greater concern is the optics of creating divisions within the party at a time when Republicans are going to need to be 100% united if there is going to be a red wave in 2024. Even some of the state Republicans at the convention voted against the motion to censure and cautioned against internal warfare. One of them issued a warning about “shooting your own elephants.” That’s probably some good advice. Better to let sleeping dogs lie and deal with this when the 2026 GOP primary rolls around.