Thom Tillis, the Republican candidate for a North Carolina Senate seat, has been accused of being a "mansplainer" by Democrats. This weekend, Tillis said the charges were "just silly."
Tillis (R), North Carolina's House speaker, was accused of mansplaining after an advertisement for his campaign stated that "math is lost on Sen. Hagan." Tillis also referred to Democratic opponent Kay Hagan as "Kay" during a debate last week, while she referred to him as "Speaker Tillis."
Tillis said Democrats were "playing gender politics to boost Sen. Kay Hagan" in an interview reported by Politico. "We're talking about the future of the greatest nation on the earth, and this is what we're going to?" Tillis asked. "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?" He added that Hagan has his permission to call him "Thom."
Politico notes that "there's no race in the country where the gender gap is more pronounced than North Carolina," and the state has 500,000 more registered female voters than male voters.