In addition to Sen. Tom Tillis (NC), Rep. Don Bacon (NE) also announced he’s retiring yesterday. There’s a lot of commentary about “centrists” and “moderates” and “institutionalists” out there and how they’re a dying breed. Whatever. This strikes me as something more straightforward. They’re both endangered incumbents. And they see that this bill, certainly now on the way to passage, is a record that basically dooms them to defeat. So they’re out. They can read the winds.
I’ll give Tillis his due. He’s been out there decrying these Medicaid cuts. He’s gotten specific about what they’ll do in his state. I don’t have a great deal of insight into who Tillis is. I assume he has some concern for the actual human consequences of these policies. But the drama has been driven by the fact that he knows he can’t sell those cuts in what was certain to at least be a close race, quite possibly against the most popular Democrat in the state (former Gov. Roy Cooper). He tried to navigate a course to reelection in which he wasn’t carrying those cuts as baggage. First he tried to prune them back. When that failed, he opted to oppose them and bring that opposition to the reelection contest. Once he signaled he’d vote against the bill, Trump announced he’d back one of Tillis’s primary opponents. That was checkmate. With no viable path forward to reelection, Tillis announced his retirement.
This isn’t about the fate of “moderates” or “institutionalists”. It’s the folks with their ear closest to the ground seeing it’s time to get out ahead of the storm.
