This past week, a mostly media-fueled bruhaha ensued after NC Sen. Thom Tillis admonished a Trump-tied operative over an X post.
Arthur Schwartz, a political consultant who helped Pete Hegseth through his nomination process, issued a post on X amplifying a poll showing Tillis trailing former Governor Roy Cooper by 4 points in a potential matchup for Tillis’ seat in 2026.
In addition to consulting work, Schwartz is also friend of Donald Trump, Jr. Schwartz has been around awhile; I became aware of him during the Common Core wars around 2014-15.
Schwartz piled on, claiming, “Thom Tillis is running 20 points behind DJT in North Carolina. We’re going to need a new senate candidate in NC unless we want to hand the gavel back to Schumer.”
Tillis clapped back at Schwartz in an NBC News interview:
“The president needs a majority to continue his agenda,” Tillis said in an interview Thursday. “Behavior by people like this guy, it’s the thing that’s the single greatest threat to us to deliver the majority next year.”
Tillis said Schwartz “doesn’t have the temperament to be anywhere around the political circles that guarantee that we come back into a majority next year.”
“Arthur Schwartz is a political hack that should probably just keep on being a smart guy and a billionaire, because he’s a s----- political consultant,” he added.
The NCB News article describes in part the controversy that arose with Hegseth’s nomination, but FOX News does a better job of what went down.
To summarize, Tillis had allegedly been in communication with Hegseth’s ex-sister-in-law about “safety allegations” involving Hegseth and Tillis had not made public how he was going to vote on the nomination right up until the vote happened. The reason this was a big deal is Vice President Vance ended up casting the tie breaking vote on Hegseth’s confirmation, so if Tillis had voted no, Hegeth would not have been confirmed.
After Tillis hit back at Schwartz, political consultant Andrew Surabian took to X with a bit of a scorcher:
Surabian is a GOP strategist with ties to Vice President JD Vance.
Additionally, Schwartz apparently wasn’t done with Tillis after his initial post. He issued two other posts, both of which were repost responses to media coverage of the spat between he and Tillis.
My take on the whole thing?
Schwartz could have made those posts on his own. It was an amplification choice to add his thoughts to posts already made by reporters.
Trump is using the levers he has available to him to pressure Tillis and keep him on a course Trump wants him on. That includes Lara Trump as a primary threat in addition to political consultants and operatives like Schwartz.
More To The Story
Going back to the poll Schwartz elevated in his initial X post.
The poll was issued by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling (PPP), an outfit known for problematic polling methods that have the effect of tailoring polls to meet desired results.
NC political consultant Jim Blaine offered related important context about PPP. He kicks off with a 2013 article in the New Republic which lays out PPP’s flawed methodology. Blaine continues from there, basically reading my mind regarding Tillis’ seat.
Go read the whole thread.
Like Blaine, I’ve was blocked by PPP in 2013 on social media for asking questions and I remain blocked to this day.
