Roy Cooper Wins U.S. Senate Race

Roy Cooper has defeated Michael Whatley to become the first Democrat North Carolina has sent to the U.S. Senate since 2008. 

The Associated Press and NBC News called the race shortly after polls closed on Tuesday evening, with early returns showing the former governor dominating Whatley, the former head of the national Republican Party. Cooper’s victory has been seen as crucial to Democrats’ hopes of retaking the Senate. 

“Tonight, we showed the country that when everyday people come together, we can make change,” Cooper said in a speech Tuesday night. “Tonight, we let everyone know that we are just getting started.”

Though North Carolina typically leans Republican in federal elections, this race’s outcome isn’t a surprise. Most insiders wrote off Whatley a month ago, as polls gave Cooper a double-digit lead and Republicans pulled back their advertising. 

Cooper, 69, is a singular figure in North Carolina politics. First elected to the state House in 1986, he served as a lawmaker, attorney general, and governor for the next 38 years. By the time he left office at the end of 2024, Cooper had cultivated a reputation for calm, steady leadership and ranked among the state’s most popular politicians. 

Labeled “blissfully boring” by a New York Times columnist and “what it would look like if a sweater designed a human” by Slate, the ever-cautious Cooper—who rarely makes an unguarded or provocative comment—offered a tonic to combative Trump-era politics. 

Whatley, by contrast, was President Donald Trump’s guy. A former oil and gas lobbyist who had never sought public office, Whatley was chairing the Republican National Committee in July 2025 when Trump tapped him to run for Senate. 

Trump had driven North Carolina’s incumbent Republican senator, Thom Tillis, into retirement over a series of disagreements, particularly Medicaid cuts. Whatley promised to support Trump’s agenda. 

At the time, Trump had middling approval ratings in North Carolina. In the 15 months since, they’ve cratered. But Whatley struggled to distinguish himself from Trump or generate enthusiasm for his campaign. 

Whatley and other Republicans argued throughout the campaign that Cooper was the “worst governor” in the state’s history. They blamed Cooper for increases in housing and energy costs and criticized a COVID-era legal settlement that led to the early release of about 3,000 state prisoners, most of whom were months away from completing their sentences. Republicans also tried to link Cooper’s policies to the brutal slaying of Iryna Zarutska on Charlotte’s light rail last year. 

But those attacks largely failed to dent Cooper’s brand. Cooper positioned himself as a moderate who’d stood up to GOP extremism and took credit for job growth, raising teacher pay, and Medicaid expansion. He also stuck fastidiously to his “make stuff cost less” message and finished with a brutal ad tying Whatley to a child sex offender. 

Experts initially predicted that the race might be this year’s closest Senate contest and could generate more than $1 billion in campaign spending. But that didn’t happen. Whatley failed to gain ground, and national Democrats turned their attention to unexpectedly competitive races in Ohio, Texas, and Kansas. In early October, national GOP groups pulled their funding from North Carolina, and Whatley paused his television advertising.   

The cake was baked. Even Trump seemed to acknowledge it at a mid-October rally for Whatley. Cooper, he said, is “going to become your senator, and it’s crazy.”