U.S. Senate Candidates Could Skip Debating for First Time in Almost 30 Years

North Carolina’s leading contenders for U.S. Senate haven’t agreed to participate in a debate before the November election. If they don’t, it would be the first time in almost 30 years that the state’s two major party nominees haven’t squared off.

Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has consistently led Republican Michael Whatley in public opinion polls. At a campaign event in High Point on Tuesday, Cooper was noncommittal when The Assembly asked about his plans.

“My team is happy to sit down and discuss the potential for a debate,” Cooper said.

Whatley, a first-time candidate, is still much less familiar to voters than the former governor, with 10 weeks to go until the November 3 election, polls show. He may have the most to gain from the attention a televised debate would bring to his candidacy. But he has not called for one publicly. His campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In each of the last eight U.S. Senate races in the state, candidates have settled on anywhere from one to three debates. The last time the candidates didn’t hold one was 1998, when Republican U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth declined to agree to any debates for fear of elevating his Democratic opponent, attorney John Edwards, who ultimately won by 4 percentage points.

Despite Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis not seeking reelection this year, this Senate race hasn’t felt like a fight for an open seat. Instead, it’s taken on an incumbent versus challenger dynamic. Cooper served as a state lawmaker, attorney general, and governor from 1987 to 2024, and he announced his U.S. Senate run months after leaving office. Whatley, meanwhile, led the state Republican Party and Republican National Committee but had never sought office himself.

“Whatley has the characteristics of a traditional challenger, which is lower name recognition,” said Eric Heberlig, a political scientist at UNC Charlotte. “People don’t know his biography, accomplishments, or policy positions. He benefits from opportunities to be visible and get his message out to the public.”

But thus far, Whatley has run an unusually risk-averse campaign. He has excluded reporters from certain media outlets from campaign events, including The Assembly, NC Newsline, and The Asheville Citizen-Times. While he does meet with journalists at events, he has at times walked away from reporters asking questions. With the exception of an interview with the Salisbury Post, Whatley has stuck to more politically friendly programs, such as Fox News, Newsmax, and conservative talk radio shows. 

“Their strategy at least to this point in the campaign has been to consolidate and mobilize their base,” Heberlig said. “At some point, in a competitive state like North Carolina, you need base-plus. You need enough of those swing voters to add to your base to get you a majority.”

Charles Hellwig, a GOP political consultant, has a track record of success bolstering Republicans in U.S. Senate races. His opposition research helped reveal that Cal Cunningham, the Democratic nominee in 2020, was having an affair with the wife of an Army veteran.

Hellwig also chaired the Wake County Republican Party at the same time Whatley led the state GOP. He said Whatley would be well served by putting himself out there more, especially by agreeing to a debate.

“Michael’s smart and quick and has been in politics,” Hellwig said. “I would think he’d be great in a debate. I would want to have him out there. He’d be a good contrast to Cooper. If I’m Cooper, I’m better off hiding in my basement, getting all the crazy, lefty money from California and New York, running nasty ads, and trying to attack Michael without having to be held accountable myself.”

While Cooper declined to say whether he’d participate in a debate this year, he has agreed to them in the past. He debated twice during his successful gubernatorial bid against then-Gov. Pat McCrory. And even when he was well ahead of then-Lt. Gov. Dan Forest in the polls for his 2020 reelection campaign, he agreed to one debate.

Cooper, like Whatley, has largely given interviews to friendly outlets so far, making frequent appearances on MS Now and on sports podcasts. 

In January, the former governor went on the Big Hitters Only podcast to discuss his UNC-Chapel Hill sports fandom. At the outset, host Ross Martin described the effort he undertook to land the interview.

“Man, your PR guy, Ben (Conroy), is a stickler,” Martin told Cooper. “It was as if you were coming on Meet the Press or something with how many questions and how careful the questions had to be oriented for this.”

Cooper quipped back, “You know what his problem is? He’s a Wake Forest guy just like my dad.”

Cooper’s campaign staff turned away two conservative outlets from attending at least one campaign event: a writer for the Blue Ridge Times who previously served as the NCGOP’s communications director and a photographer for The North State Journal, which was founded by Neal Robbins, who now works in the Trump administration. But Cooper consistently takes questions after his events from all reporters in attendance.

Still, his staff usually allows one question each, and it’s easier to avoid tough subjects than it would be on a debate stage. Asked at an event in Wilson which COVID restrictions he regretted issuing as governor, Cooper replied, “That was a tough time for everybody. What we did was took the information that we had at the time and made the very best decisions that we could at the time. I think we know a lot more today.” Then, he moved on.