On Sunday afternoon, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis announced that he would no longer seek reelection to the seat that he has held since 2014. In so doing the Senate seat most vulnerable to flipping to the other side became even hard for Republicans to hold. (The next two seats are Democratic-held Georgia and Republican-held Maine, followed by a rather precipitous drop-off to the next tier of seats.)

To be sure, Tillis was in a precarious position to begin with. I’ll talk about the political leanings of the state below, but for now I’ll just assert this is a narrowly divided state. This requires Tillis to walk a tightrope of supporting the Republican president enough not to lose his base, but opposing him enough to keep moderates on board.

This has become increasingly difficult in Trump’s second term, especially as MAGA commentators have increasingly taken a stance that opposing any of the president’s agenda is unacceptable. Tillis, for example, drew heavy fire for opposing Trump’s nominee for United States attorney for the District of Columbia. His retirement appears to be precipitated by a salvo of attacks from the president after Tillis voted “no” on a procedural vote to advance the “Big, Beautiful Bill.”

At the same time, Tillis faced a general election........

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