Just because Thom Tillis was so closely aligned to President Trump before COVID,

but when COVID hit he kind of started to tack more towards the middle, not really talking about Donald Trump.

原译：

就因为在疫情之前，托姆蒂利斯是特朗普总统的铁杆支持者。

但当疫情开始时，他似乎开始向中间靠拢，而不再谈论特朗普了。

1）so closely aligned to 还是 so closely aligned with 呢？

2）句中的副词more是much的比较级，用在这里修饰动词tack还是修饰后面的towards the middle呢？如何理解这里的副词more的这种修饰作用（从我们汉语的思维角度看）？