In President Donald Trump’s get-out-the-vote message to North Carolinians this week, he hammered Democratic Senate nominee Roy Cooper over his crime record during his two-term tenure as governor.
It’s become a recurring theme for Republicans in the North Carolina Senate race, who are hoping to hold on to the battleground seat against one of the Democrats’ top recruits of the cycle.
“You can either vote for Roy Cooper to set loose criminals who rape and murder your children and your population, or you can vote for Michael Whatley to protect and defend your children and your population,” Trump said while speaking in Gastonia, North Carolina.
Trump also accused Cooper of making cities in the Tar Heel State “blood-soaked killing fields.”
Trump’s comments echoed Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley’s comments last week at the Republican National Committee midterm convention, where he claimed that “Cooper set up a revolving door, that put criminals back on the streets again, and again, and again.” Whatley and Trump have also tried to blame Cooper for the 2025 fatal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian, by DeCarlos Brown Jr. on a Charlotte rail system.
North Carolina’s Senate seat is a crucial race that Democrats must flip in order to retake the Senate for the first time since 2022. But voters have consistently said that the cost of living and economy, not crime, are their top priorities.
An Elon University poll released last week showed that likely voters favor Cooper by 49%, Whatley by 36%, and another 14% said they were undecided or planned to vote for someone else.
The poll also showed that crime did not crack the top five most important issues. An overwhelming majority of voters, 86%, said inflation and the cost of living were “very important” issues; 73% said the general economy and healthcare were “very important,” followed by taxes at 66%, Social Security at 64%, personal character of candidates at 60%, immigration at 54%, and the war in Iran at 50%.
A Carolina Journal poll released on Thursday showed Cooper’s lead increased to 15.1 points over Whatley, a former RNC chairman, among likely voters, 49.2% to 34.1%. It also showed that 61.5% said the United States is currently on the “wrong track,” with the Iran war driving up the dissatisfaction; 58.9% of respondents said going to war was the wrong decision.
That hasn’t stopped Republicans from blasting Cooper over releasing 3,500 inmates during the COVID-19 pandemic as part of a civil rights lawsuit settlement. After a group of civil rights groups sued Cooper’s gubernatorial administration in 2020 over COVID-19 infection risks, a North Carolina Superior Court judge ordered the two sides to reach an agreement. In 2021, a settlement was reached enabling the early release of the 3,500 inmates.
“All Roy Cooper has to show for his failed 40 years of leadership is a rap sheet with the worst of the worst criminals and the highest healthcare costs in the nation,” said Bernadette Breslin, NRSC national press secretary.
The Senate Leadership Fund PAC created a website highlighting Cooper’s “40 years of failure” in North Carolina, with links to stories of prisoners under his tenure who went on to commit more crimes.
It’s part of an effort to localize the race, which has become one of the most high-profile contests in the country.
“Roy Cooper’s soft-on-crime policies and his decision to release thousands of violent criminals from prison early has led to needless tragedy and made the Tar Heel State less safe. Senate Leadership Fund will continue to remind North Carolinians of Cooper’s deadly record,” Chris Gustafson, the group’s communications director, said.
None of the major GOP outside groups offered polling data on Cooper’s vulnerability on crime when asked by the Washington Examiner.
The Cooper campaign denounced the attacks on his crime record and pointed to Whatley’s history of associating with convicted sex offenders, in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“Independent fact-checkers have called these attacks false – Michael Whatley is getting desperate and it’s shameful that he’s using heinous crimes to try to deceive North Carolinians,” said a Cooper campaign spokesman. “While Roy spent his career putting rapists and violent criminals behind bars and signing tough on crime laws as governor, Michael Whatley has continued to knowingly appoint, campaign with and elevate convicted child sex predators who spent time in prison and is celebrating the support of a President who released over 13,000 prisoners during COVID without a court order.”
Pastor Daimon L. King, a registered sex offender, delivered an opening prayer for Whatley at a recent campaign stop. Democrats have also slammed Whatley over appointing a convicted sex offender, Harvey L. West Jr., to the state GOP party committee when he served as the state party chairman, as well as Trump releasing 13,000 federal prisoners during the pandemic.
Republicans are reportedly worried the North Carolina seat could be lost as Cooper’s lead in polls and fundraising has not abated despite the frequent attacks on his crime record, with some even suggesting that the GOP stop investing in the Tar Heel State.
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, affiliated with the University of Virginia, rates the seat as “Leans Democratic” and a likely Democratic flip.
“Looking at the poll numbers, it’s hard to say that it’s really moved the needle,” said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, about attacking Cooper on crime. “Whatley has linked himself so obviously to Trump, he kind of has to own this economy, where people are not feeling good about it.
“The Republicans may see a vulnerability on crime, but you know he’s done a good job talking about bread and butter issues, the economy — people remember him well as a governor,” Coleman said. “I just think over the years he built up this brand that he’s just come across as a very kind of trusted commodity, and it’s just hard to compete with that.”
Cooper has never lost a statewide race, while Whatley has never held public office. Democrats also haven’t won the Senate seat in North Carolina since 2008.
In recent days, a new super PAC, “No Going Back,” which is linked to Trump’s MAGA Inc. group, reserved about $5 million in the Senate race, according to AdImpact. The SLF also recently released a 30-second ad on the Senate race again, slamming Cooper for releasing inmates while in office.
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Whatley boasts the endorsements from the North Carolina Police Benevolent Association, the North Carolina Fraternal Order of Police, and the nonpartisan National Border Patrol Council, which bolster his attacks against Cooper.
“It’s commonsense for families to want to feel safe — but with soft-on-crime Roy Cooper all they can count on is empty prisons and terrifying monsters in their communities,” RNC spokeswoman Emma Hall told the Washington Examiner. “Families and law enforcement trust Michael Whatley to have their backs and put their safety first.”