Is President Donald Trump tired of winning?

That’s the conclusion you almost have to come to after watching the events of the last five days, when North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis decided to leave Washington instead of deal with Trump’s special brand of revenge politics.

The two-term Republicans decision tells us a lot about the current dynamics in Washington — and a little about how U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s race in Georgia just got a bit easier, too, thanks largely to Trump’s latest moves against a member of his own party.

For those who haven’t heard of Tillis, he is a fiscal conservative and former businessman who rose to become speaker of the North Carolina House and then U.S. senator. Although he’d been censured by North Carolina Republicans before, Tillis was also widely considered his party’s best chance to hang on to the Senate seat in a state where its new Democratic governor, Josh Stein, has sky high approval ratings. Like Ossoff, Tillis was also up for reelection in 2026 in a bona fide battleground state.

But when it became clear over the weekend that Tillis would vote against Trump’s massive tax and spending bill that was being negotiated in the Senate, the president went to social media Saturday night to rip Tillis as a grandstander, a talker, a complainer and “NOT A DOER!”

He also threatened to find other Republicans to challenge Tillis in a primary in a state where his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, has been floated as a Tillis replacement. Trump said he’d find someone who, unlike Tillis, “will properly represent the Great People of North Carolina and, so importantly, the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Before he was done, the president also had a warning for other Republicans considering a vote against the Big Beautiful Bill Act over concerns about its $3 trillion of deficit spending. “REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected. Don’t go too crazy! We will make it all up, times 10, with GROWTH, more than ever before,” the president wrote.

Within a day, Tillis had voted against Trump’s bill and announced he would retire from the Senate.

“Too many elected officials are motivated by pure raw politics who really don’t give a damn about the people they promised to represent on the campaign trail,” Tillis said in a statement announcing his retirement. In the end, “It wasn’t a hard decision.”

Apart from the sheer drama of it all, the loss of Tillis for Republicans gives us several clues about the 2026 elections, including here in Georgia. Several Republicans have already jumped in the race against Ossoff, while Trump and Gov. Brian Kemp search for a consensus candidate they both think can beat the freshman Democrat.

While the Ossoff challenge will remain a marquis race, Republicans will have to spend more money, time and attention on a Senate seat they already held, until this week. After several lucky breaks, including avoiding Kemp as an opponent, it looks like Ossoff has another stroke of luck across the state line in North Carolina.

Tillis’ experience over the weekend challenges the conventional wisdom we heard out of Washington earlier this year, likely being circulated by Trump’s own team, that the president is newly strategic when it comes to the 2026 midterm elections. Gone are the days when he would pick endorsements for close pals or those showing blind loyalty, Republican strategists said. Trump just wants to win.

But the president’s attacks on Tillis showed that’s really not the case. Instead of finding a way to make the incumbent Republican stronger heading into reelection, Trump insulted him publicly instead. Tillis’ decision to leave now creates an open seat in a battleground state that Republicans will have to fight mightily to keep, especially where popular former Democratic governor Roy Cooper is reportedly considering a run.

Tillis’ rejection of the Republicans’ bill over Medicaid cuts specifically is also a clue that the tax-cut legislation assumed to be a huge win for Republicans to run on in 2026 may not be that at all.

In a fiery floor speech Sunday, Tillis said the tax cuts that Trump wants on his desk by July Fourth are only made possible by deep cuts to health care spending, including Medicaid. Tillis warned those cuts will hurt hundreds of thousands of people in North Carolina.

“Republicans are about to make a mistake on health care and betray a promise,” Tillis said. “It is inescapable.”

He went on to say Trump was being advised by “amateurs” who didn’t do basic research on the bill. Not only do the White House advisers not know what they’re talking about, Tillis said, they lied to Trump about the real impact of the bill.

“I’m telling the president that you have been misinformed,” he said.

Possibly with Tillis’ own words, the reconciliation bill will now be used in 2026 campaigns against the same Republicans who helped pass it, including U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter. Carter, who is challenging Ossoff in 2026, has said he would have preferred the health spending cuts in the bill had been even deeper.

The Tillis episode gives us clues about Trump’s mindset, as well as a top issue in the 2026 campaigns. Republicans now have to win an open seat in North Carolina, instead of defending a sitting Republican, putting the North Carolina race at the top of the GOP’s national priorities for 2026.

If Republicans were tired of winning up to this point, it seems like they’re on the right path now, thanks to Trump.

©2025 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Visit at ajc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.