Who’s Running for Senate in NC? Cooper, Whatley, and the Polls

North Carolina’s 2026 U.S. Senate race is a contest between former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Whatley, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, for the seat being vacated by retiring Senator Thom Tillis. Cooper has led every publicly released general election poll so far, and major forecasters now rate the race as leaning Democratic.¹ With Republicans holding a 53–47 Senate majority, the seat is one of a handful that will decide control of the chamber after November 2026.²

Why the Seat Is Open

Senator Thom Tillis, first elected in 2014, announced on June 29, 2025, that he would not seek a third term. Tillis cited a political environment hostile to bipartisanship, saying that “leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species.”³ His decision followed public clashes with President Donald Trump over the Republican budget bill, which Tillis had opposed because of its cuts to Medicaid.⁴

Roy Cooper, the Democratic Nominee

Roy Cooper has nearly four decades in North Carolina public life. He served in the state House starting in 1986, moved to the state Senate in 1991, and later became Senate Majority Leader. He was elected attorney general in 2000 and served four terms before winning the governor’s office in 2016 by roughly 10,000 votes over incumbent Pat McCrory.⁵

Cooper served two terms as governor through January 2025. During that time he signed the repeal of HB 2, the “bathroom bill,” and expanded Medicaid to approximately 600,000 low-income residents. He clashed often with the Republican-controlled General Assembly, vetoing 104 bills; Republicans overrode 52 of them. A state audit also found that his administration’s hurricane recovery program, ReBuild NC, lacked proper oversight and carried a $221 million deficit.⁵

His Senate campaign is built around a “Make Things Cost Less” theme introduced at a Raleigh kickoff event on March 4, 2026.⁶ His campaign website argues that “the biggest corporations and the richest Americans have grabbed unimaginable wealth at your expense.”⁷ Former Congressman Wiley Nickel had been running for the Democratic nomination before Cooper entered, and suspended his campaign on July 29, 2025, to endorse him.⁸

Michael Whatley, the Republican Nominee

Michael Whatley has never held elected office. He became chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party in 2019, during a period when the state GOP flipped the state Supreme Court and secured legislative supermajorities. At Trump’s request, he was elected chairman of the Republican National Committee in March 2024 and ran the national party apparatus through the 2024 election cycle.⁹ Earlier, he worked in the George W. Bush administration’s Energy Department, served as chief of staff to former North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole, led the energy and agriculture teams for the 2016 Trump-Pence transition, and served as the Trump administration’s designated “recovery czar” for disaster relief.¹⁰

Trump personally recruited Whatley into the race after Tillis announced his retirement, telling him by phone, “You’re going to run, you’re going to win and you’re going to do great.”¹¹ Trump issued a formal endorsement on Truth Social on July 24, 2025, and later campaigned with Whatley at rallies in Rocky Mount and on Fort Bragg.¹²

Whatley’s campaign emphasizes that he grew up in Blowing Rock and attended Watauga High School, but reporting has shown he was born in Michigan and lived there until his early high school years, a fact his campaign website omits.¹⁰ He holds degrees from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Wake Forest University.

How the Primaries Went

Both parties held their primaries on March 3, 2026. Whatley won the Republican nomination with 405,140 votes, about 65 percent of the total. His closest challenger, Don Brown, received roughly 98,000 votes, or 16 percent, and five other candidates split the rest.¹³

Cooper won the Democratic nomination handily over a field that included Daryl Farrow, Robert Colon, Justin Dues, Marcus W. Williams, and Orrick Quick.¹⁴ An earlier New York Times poll had shown his nearest competitor at just 3 percent.¹⁵

Where the Race Stands

The RealClearPolitics polling average as of mid-2026 showed Cooper ahead by roughly 7 points, 49 percent to 42 percent.¹⁶ Individual polls have run from a 3-point Cooper lead in a Public Policy Polling survey in March 2026 to a 14-point lead in a YouGov survey in June 2026.¹⁷ A Catawba College poll also put Cooper up by 14 and found that 64 percent of voters said they knew “little to nothing” about Whatley. Whatley has acknowledged the gap, saying, “We just need to introduce me and my ideas to the rest of the state.”¹⁸

Major forecasters have moved in Cooper’s direction. The Cook Political Report took the race off its “Toss-up” list in April 2026, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball shifted its rating from “Toss-up” to “Leans Democratic” in June 2026.¹ On the Polymarket betting exchange, Cooper’s implied probability of winning stood at 87 percent as of mid-2026.¹⁶

Cooper also entered the general election with a financial lead. Through the end of 2025, he had raised roughly $18 million and held $12.3 million in cash on hand, compared with roughly $5.2 million raised and $3.7 million on hand for Whatley.¹⁹ Whatley added another $5 million in the first quarter of 2026, bringing his cash on hand to $16 million.²⁰ Outside spending dwarfs the candidate accounts. The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, has pledged at least $71 million to support Whatley, its second-largest state-level investment this cycle.¹⁸ The Senate Majority PAC committed $31.4 million in television advertising for North Carolina in May 2026, plus a “significant digital investment.”²¹

What Each Side Is Running On

Cooper is keeping the race focused on North Carolina issues: schools, jobs, Medicaid, hurricane recovery, and kitchen-table costs like property taxes, grocery prices, and healthcare.² Republicans are nationalizing it. The Senate Leadership Fund’s ads frame the vote as a choice about Senate control, asking voters whether they want to help Chuck Schumer run the chamber, and Republican-aligned groups plan to attack Cooper on crime and on the ReBuild NC oversight failures.²²

Democrats plan to tie Whatley to Trump’s record on tariffs and inflation and to attack his performance as the administration’s recovery czar after Hurricane Helene.²¹ Polling has shown softening support for Trump in North Carolina on inflation, gas prices, and tariffs, though his standing on tax policy has improved.² Whether that dissatisfaction reaches Whatley, who has closely aligned himself with the president, is one of the central questions of the race.

1
NC Newsline. North Carolina’s Senate Race No Longer a Toss-Up, Top Forecasters Say
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WRAL. Cooper Leads Whatley in US Senate Race, New NC Polls
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Axios. Thom Tillis Retire Senate North Carolina
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ABC11. Thom Tillis Reflects on Retirement, Criticism in Final Senate Year
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The Assembly. Roy Cooper Legacy Governor North Carolina
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CNBC. North Carolina 2026 Senate Race Roy Cooper Michael Whatley
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Roy Cooper for Senate. Roy Cooper for Senate
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ABC11. Former Congressman Wiley Nickel Drops 2026 Senate Race, Endorses Roy Cooper
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The Hill. Who Is Michael Whatley, Trump’s Pick to Lead RNC
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NBC News. Michael Whatley Downplays Michigan Roots Senate North Carolina
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NBC News. Michael Whatley Ties Trump North Carolina Senate Race
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CBS Austin. President Donald Trump Endorses RNC Chair Michael Whatley North Carolina Senate Seat
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North Carolina State Board of Elections. Election Results
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Elon News Network. Democrat Senate Candidates
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The New York Times. North Carolina U.S. Senate Election Polls
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RealClearPolling. Cooper vs. Whatley
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The New York Times. North Carolina U.S. Senate Election Polls
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WRAL. NC Senate Cooper Whatley Spending Election
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NC Newsline. Cooper Reports Sizable Lead in Fundraising for 2026 U.S. Senate Race
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Carolina Journal. Major Ranking Moves NC’s Senate Race From Toss-Up to Lean D
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Senate Majority PAC. Senate Majority PAC Commits $31 Million to Flip North Carolina Senate Seat
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Senate Leadership Fund. SLF Announces Initial $71 Million Investment in North Carolina’s U.S. Senate Race