If she runs for Senate, Lara Trump would need to move back to NC by this fall
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Lara Trump remains top GOP contender despite not yet confirming her Senate candidacy.
- Trump must reestablish North Carolina residency by Sept. 20 to run in 2026.
- North Carolina requires 90-day party affiliation before filing for Senate primary.
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US Sen. Thom Tillis & NC Senate race
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican who has represented North Carolina in Washington for a decade , announced June 29, 2025, he won’t seek reelection amid dissent with President Donald Trump. The Huntersville resident, a former speaker of the state House of Representatives, was first elected to the Senate in 2014. Here is coverage of the announcement and what it means for the 2026 Senate race.
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As Republicans now face an open race for their party’s nomination for U.S. Senate next year, the one name that has shot to the top of the list is Lara Trump.
The president’s daughter-in-law co-chaired the Republican National Committee during Donald Trump’s successful bid for the White House last year and currently hosts a weekly television show on Fox News. She is “strongly considering” running for the seat that will be vacated by retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, NBC News reported Sunday.
Her entry into the race could effectively end the GOP primary before it even begins. Her father-in-law had encouraged her to run for the U.S. Senate seat that opened with the retirement of Richard Burr in 2022, and when he was asked about the 2026 race on Tuesday, he said she would be his “first choice.”
Other prominent Republicans whose names have been floated as potential candidates have either taken themselves out of the running, like U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, or have preemptively endorsed Trump’s candidacy, should she decide to enter the race, as first-term congressman Pat Harrigan did.
If Trump does move forward with a Senate bid, she’ll need to take certain steps to ensure her eligibility, the most important of which would be to move back to North Carolina and register to vote here.
When did Lara Trump live in NC?
A Wilmington native, Trump grew up in Wrightsville Beach and studied communications at N.C. State University before moving to New York, where she met her now-husband, Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons.
Lara Trump was registered to vote in Wake County while she attended college at N.C. State, and voted in the 2000, 2002 and 2004 general elections in North Carolina, according to the State Board of Elections. She has since been removed from the North Carolina voter list.
Later, Trump lived in New York, where she reportedly voted in 2016 the first time her father-in-law won. Since September 2021, Trump has been a registered voter in Palm Beach County, Florida, according to the Florida Department of State.
What are Senate candidate requirements in NC?
The N.C. State Board of Elections points to only three “general candidate requirements” for running for U.S. Senate. Per federal law, candidates must be at least 30 years old, a U.S. citizen for at least nine years, and a resident of the state they are running from by the date of the general election.
State law, however, requires candidates running in a party primary to be “affiliated with that party for at least 90 days” as of the date that person officially files their notice of candidacy.
Candidate filing for the 2026 primary election is currently scheduled to begin at noon on Monday, Dec. 1, 2025 and end at noon on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025.
That means that if Trump decides to seek the Republican Party’s nomination, she would need to move to North Carolina and register to vote here as a Republican by Sept. 20, 2025, at the latest.
Other candidates for U.S. Senate who have gone on to win and represent North Carolina in Washington have grown up here, lived here, or have otherwise had ties here, but lived elsewhere at the time they began thinking about a campaign, and had to move back to the state to run.
Former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, for example, took the first step towards running in the 2002 election when she registered to vote in her native Rowan County the previous August, declaring herself a legal resident of the state based in Salisbury, after spending more than three decades in Washington.
At the time, Dole, a Republican, listed her residence as her childhood home on South Fulton Street, where her 100-year-old mother continued to live, according to a report in the Charlotte Observer, and turned in her registration form in person at the Rowan County administrative building.
This story was originally published July 2, 2025 at 1:25 PM.
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