CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Senator Thom Tillis' re-election campaign distributed a news release on Tuesday stating that the Washington Free Beacon had uncovered that Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham’s company received millions in Paycheck Protection Program loans, all while he criticized the program for “harming communities.” Tillis' release says that "this development is just another example in the long-running list of hypocrisy Cunningham has engaged in during this campaign."

“Cal Cunningham has spent this entire race saying one thing and doing another in order to fall in line with his liberal benefactors in Washington,” said Tillis campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo. “If Cunningham can’t be honest about where he stands on a program that has saved over one million North Carolina jobs, voters shouldn’t trust him when he pretends he won’t be just another vote for Chuck Schumer’s extreme agenda of tax increases and job-killing policies.” 

According to The Charlotte Observer, Cunningham says he left WasteZero in March before the loan program passed. Also according to the Observer, Cunningham's campaign said "not only did he have no role in the loan application but he supported the PPP program. He criticized it only for missing 'the industries and areas most heavily impacted by COVID-19.'"