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The article titled “With Sen. Thom Tillis retiring, what happens to his $4 million campaign haul?” was written by Sophia Bailly and published by The News & Observer on July 2, 2025. On June 29, 2025, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina announced that he wouldn’t seek another term in the Senate, raising questions of how $4 million in campaign contributions would be addressed. Brett Kappel spoke to several options for how Tillis could proceed, beginning with refunding all contributions that were meant for the general election, a requirement with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

After this, Kappel said the campaign can begin to “wind down” activities and decide between five paths that are approved by the FEC to distribute any remaining funds. According to Kappel, an option that is becoming increasingly common is donating to nonprofits and charities. However, Tillis could also decide to retain the funds with the intention of using them for any future political runs. Kappel explains that “There are campaign committees of people who retired or lost elections more than a decade ago that still exist…The former members still use [the committees] to make campaign contributions.” The only requirement to hold on to the funds is to continue the quarterly reporting of their totals, which would allow the funds to “…sit untouched indefinitely.”