The attacks began after Tillis, in a paid advertisement, jabbed at the incumbent. Tillis dismisses 'mansplaining'

WILSON, N.C. — Thom Tillis, the Republican running for a North Carolina Senate seat that could well decide the majority in the Senate, has been pilloried since a debate last week against Sen. Kay Hagan by Democrats who see him as a condescending “man-splainer” who played into gender stereotypes.

But in his first comments on the controversy, the Republican state House speaker was unrepentant in a sit-down interview on the campaign trail, chalking up the firestorm to Democrats playing gender politics to boost Sen. Kay Hagan. “It’s just silly,” he said during a lunch stop this weekend with supporters over barbecue, fried oysters and chicken livers. “We’re talking about the future of the greatest nation on the earth, and this is what we’re going to?”


In a state that’s become ground zero this cycle for Democrats’ “war on women” strategy, the debate served as a flash point. There’s no race in the country where the gender gap is more pronounced than North Carolina — a must-win state for both parties. Democratic women’s groups Planned Parenthood and EMILY’s List have already announced their biggest 2014 investments will be in the Tar Heel State, where there are 500,000 more women registered to vote than men.

( Also on POLITICO: Kay Hagan, Thom Tillis spar in first debate)

Polls have shown the race locked in a dead heat even with the wide gender gap. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll — conducted in August, before the first debate — had Hagan up 18 points among female voters and Tillis leading by 12 points among men.

The attacks began after Tillis, in a paid advertisement, jabbed at the incumbent, a former bank vice president, saying “Math is lost on Sen. Hagan.” Then, in last week’s debate, in which the Republican appeared better prepared overall, Tillis referred to her as “Kay,” even though she continued to refer to him as “Speaker Tillis.”

“We saw women on social media in particular who were bothered by his tone and more than anything they were bothered by his record,” said Sadie Weiner, spokeswoman for Hagan.

Tillis dismissed the criticism.

“I knew Sen. Hagan when she was in the state Legislature. I knew her husband, Chip. This race isn’t about titles. It’s about results,” he said. “And in Sen. Hagan’s case, it’s a lack of results. If you look at it just objectively, if that is what Hagan’s camp is focusing on in this debate, then they must have really felt in their own minds that they fell short on the issues. If it really comes down to that — I mean what about the substance of the debate?”

( Also on POLITICO: Kay Hagan hits, then embraces Obama)

Would Tillis have treated a male candidate the same way?

“Of course,” he quickly said. “When you’re in debates, you’re trying to point to things that people can go back to. The 24 times that she said people could keep their health care — these are numbers people need to hear.”

(National Republicans have pointed out that in the 2008 presidential primary debates, then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden called Hillary Clinton “Hillary” instead of Sen. Clinton.)

The major development in the debate was Tillis’ announcement that he supports selling birth-control medication over the counter — the fourth GOP Senate candidate to do so.

Democrats say it’s a calculated political decision to woo some female voters and point to statements from this spring’s divisive GOP primary, in which Tillis said he supported states being able to ban contraceptives.

“I don’t know why it’s a surprise,” Tillis said in the interview this weekend. “I’ve never been in a situation, unlike what Sen. Hagan said — I’ve never been against — at some point I think she suggested I would ban contraception. That’s absurd. I would never do that. The question I think then had more to with taxpayer funding.

“One of the problems fundamental to health care in the United States is access and cost,” he continued. “Everyone knows that my key drivers to moving health care policies is improving access and reducing costs and improving outcomes. This position on contraception actually fits all three of those categories.”

Tillis might be moving to the middle on contraception now, but groups like Planned Parenthood have already spent months knocking on doors, telling voters that the challenger has “an extreme record” when it comes to women. The group started a digital campaign this week and mail is expected to go out at the end of the month.

“We’re going to ramp it up,” Melissa Reed, vice president for public affairs for Planned Parenthood Action Fund in North Carolina, told POLITICO at a Raleigh coffee shop with some of the group’s volunteers after a week of get-out-the-vote training. “Thom Tillis’ comments were really just an empty gesture and a Republican talking point. They recognize that they are losing the women electorate and that there is a significant gender gap, but they really don’t understand the economic hardship that over-the-counter birth control could place on women.”

Over the summer, Planned Parenthood made 84,000 calls and knocked on more than 8,000 doors in Wake, Mecklenburg and Buncombe counties — areas that include the more liberal pockets in the state. The group plans to spend $3 million on the race highlighting Tillis’ record, which includes an effort to defund Planned Parenthood.

EMILY’s List has committed an additional $3 million through its independent-expenditure arm, which has so far aired two spots statewide. Neither ad has been about abortion or access to contraception: One focused on education cuts, and the other on equal pay for women.

The TV ads from the Hagan campaign and outside groups haven’t yet focused on women’s reproductive issues because education and economic hardship for the middle class are actually driving the gender gap, said John Anzalone, Hagan’s pollster.

“Tillis has vulnerabilities with each segment of the women,” said Anzalone. “But in general, I’d say the non-college-educated white women are up for grabs.”

Knowing women will play a crucial role in the race, Tillis’ wife, Susan, has joined him full time on the campaign trail; she accompanied him on visits to tobacco farms in Eastern North Carolina this weekend. Female state legislators who have worked with Tillis in the state House are also expected to join him on the stump.

In the interview, Tillis said his campaign will focus on ideology instead of gender to win the independents.

“We are just trying to focus on the real negative consequences that Kay Hagan has been responsible for that have disproportionally harmed women and minorities,” he said, pointing to the Affordable Care Act, among other examples. “If you look at the substance of what Sen. Hagan has done, she has harmed the very people that she now tries to postulate that she’s here to protect.”

While the first debate and the attacks that followed in recent days have been gender-focused, on the campaign trail this weekend in a conservative part of the state, the issues that came up between tours of tobacco farms and eating barbecue were all mostly focused on the economy — from taxes to the Export-Import Bank and Trans-Pacific Partnership.

When asked about Democrats calling Tillis disrespectful to Hagan, Jerome Vick — who hosted Tillis and some supporters on his tobacco and sweet potato farm Saturday morning — quickly dismissed the portrayal.

“Hagan’s trying to make an issue of that because of Thom Tillis’ stand on Obamacare and the birth-control pills,” Vick said. “But I think Thom Tillis is not a womanizer or anything like what they would portray him to be. He’s an upstanding man. He’s as straight as 6 o’clock.”

Hagan and Tillis will meet again next month for their second debate. Tillis said this weekend he will consider modifying his approach — at least in how he refers to Hagan.

“I will probably still call [Hagan’s husband] Chip, and then I’ll leave it to the folks I’m working with — my advisers,” he said. “She can call me Thom. In fact, I’d prefer she called me Thom. Everybody in the Legislature knows that.”