GOP hopeful calls for Senate takeover

North Carolina Republican Senate candidate Thom Tillis used his party’s address to push for a GOP takeover of the upper chamber. 

{mosads}“Simply put, America lacks leadership and is no longer considered to be an exceptional nation by our allies and our adversaries alike,” North Carolina House Speaker Tillis said Saturday.

“But this November, we can change that. The American people have a chance to send a message to Washington by electing a new Senate majority that will move our country in a new direction and restore the American dream,” he added.

Tillis is locked in a tough race with Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) that could help decide the fate of the Senate. Hagan has been running narrowly ahead in recent polls.

A Republican Senate majority would let Americans “live out their aspirations,” Tillis said, by growing the economy and ensuring that the United States is “the strong leader in the world that is desperate for our leadership.”

If Republicans won back the Senate, the party would look to tackle the federal debt with a balance budget amendment to the Constitution, repeal ObamaCare, overhaul the tax code and cut “burdensome government red tape for our small businesses on Main Street,” Tillis pledged.

Tillis, who is not very well known outside of his home state, also used the address to introduce himself to the larger American public. 

“I was brought-up in a working-class family with my mother and father and five siblings,” he said, noting that he “lived on the economic bubble” and constantly had to pack up and move to wherever his father could find work.

Tillis got his first job as a paperboy at age 12 and worked at a warehouse after high school because he couldn’t afford college.

“I know firsthand what it’s like to raise a family attending school at night and struggling to make ends meet,” he said.