On Wednesday, wealthy businessman Garland Tucker confirmed that he would challenge North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis in the March GOP primary. Roll Call recently wrote that Tucker has the resources to self-fund a bid, but it’s not clear how much he’s willing or able to throw down.
Tucker wasted no time blasting Tillis for having “flip-flopped” this winter when he published an op-ed in The Washington Post declaring that he would vote for a resolution rolling back Donald Trump's bogus emergency declaration three weeks before he voted against that very resolution. Tucker declared that Tillis “also sponsored legislation with liberal Senator Cory Booker to protect the Robert Mueller investigation against President Trump.”
However, Tillis’ team is already trying to portray Tucker as the anti-Trump candidate. On Monday, after Tucker set up a campaign account but before he announced, Tillis’ campaign immediately dusted off comments Tucker made in September 2016 in which he stated that, despite being a lifelong Republican, he was adamantly against Trump in the primary and reticent to support him in the general.
Tucker did say at the time that his fervent opposition to Hillary Clinton ultimately left him with no other choice than to back Trump, whom he still described as “a twice-divorced, self-acknowledged adulterer who has, in the course of this campaign, uttered some of the most unkind, disgusting comments ever made by any American politician.” Tucker now says he’s a strong supporter of Trump.
Of course, Tucker’s new pro-Trump stance is hardly stopping Tillis’ allies at the NRSC from labeling the challenger “a wealthy, out-of-touch liberal.” The NRSC even focused some of its wrath on Tucker consultant Carter Wrenn, who was involved in producing Sen. Jesse Helms' infamously racist "Hands" ad during the 1990 election against black Democrat Harvey Gantt. The committee declared that Tucker was “talked into this by a past-his-prime political consultant looking for a paycheck.”
Tillis might also try to use Tucker’s business background against him. Tucker founded the multi-million dollar investment firm Triangle Capital Corporation, which was sold for almost $1 billion last year. However, that sale came months after TCC’s stock crashed, an event that the company’s CEO blamed on Tucker and other former managers.