ELON, North Carolina — Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is on the cusp of flipping the open Senate seat in the Tar Heel State next month.
Cooper has led wire-to-wire over Republican opponent Michael Whatley, maintaining wide polling and fundraising leads and forcing key GOP super PACs to pause spending in the race to focus elsewhere.
It is a rare moment for North Carolina Democrats, who have invested heavily in recent Senate and presidential contests only to come up short.
If Cooper wins, he would be the first North Carolina Democrat to serve in the upper chamber since Kay Hagan left office in January 2015. It would also signal that Democrats in the state are making steady progress in possibly turning a purple state blue at the presidential level for the first time in 18 years, when Democrat Barack Obama won the state in 2008. Although North Carolina did not make the early voting window for the 2028 Democratic presidential primary, its inclusion in the debate was another factor suggesting Democrats are hopeful the state will flip in 2028.
A Cooper win will “absolutely” help Democrats on their 2028 ambitions, said the Rev. Ann Harrington, 74, a resident of Greenville, North Carolina.
“Because it’ll get people more enthused and to become active and know the importance of what lies ahead for us,” said Harrington, who protested President Donald Trump’s visit to the state recently. “It’s swinging back the other way. It’s kind of historically does that.”
Democratic state Sen. Kandie Smith claimed that her party will need to focus on voter turnout now if they hope to win the state two years from now.
“If he wins, that definitely helps us at that federal level 100% because we need him to win,” Smith told the Washington Examiner. “This gerrymandering that they’ve done has created a lot of issues, and it’s been done intentionally because they want to make sure they take the power away. But as I’ve stated before, the pendulum always swings, and it’s swinging right now because people are tired of these high costs.”
The GOP-controlled North Carolina Legislature redrew the congressional map in October 2025, making the 1st and 11th districts more Republican-friendly. But in a difficult political climate due to high gas and diesel prices stemming from the Iran war, both districts have come into play for Democrats. The Cook Political Report changed its rating of the 11th District to Leans Democratic and the 1st District to a toss-up, both moves in Democrats’ favor.
Publicly, Republicans are still hopeful that Whatley and the handful of battleground Republicans running can win. But in private, they admit the state has grown harder to keep in GOP control.
The race was expected to be perhaps the most expensive Senate election in the country, but its overall investment, about $150 million, is pennies compared to the nearly $550 million in the Texas contest as it got away from the GOP.
There was “a lot of hope and optimism coming into this cycle,” said one GOP operative. “You’ve seen political realities play out over these last several months, and significant headwinds that Republicans are facing. So, ’28 will take care of itself, and you’ll have to combat the political landscape then.”
Voters who attend Trump’s and Vice President JD Vance’s rallies in the state also said they remain optimistic that North Carolina will support the Republican nominee in 2028.
“I have faith that we’re going to stay Republican,” said Mindy Towns, 61, a retiree from Marion, North Carolina. “Just talking to people, I think that the Left is so far left that there might be people who will come out and vote Republican just because some of the Left is too left.”
Although no Democrat has launched a presidential campaign, there is an informal shadow primary playing out as progressive lawmakers such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) try to stake a claim against more centrist candidates in the hypothetical field, such as Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA).
The 2028 battle will likely feature an insurgent socialist candidate pushing the party leftward against centrist candidates, which Republicans think can help keep North Carolina, which Trump won three times, red.
“I think there’s a lot of people that appreciate the middle of the line,” Towns added. “But I just feel like [Democrats are] off the rails right now.”
Jason Simmons, the chairman of the North Carolina GOP, told the Washington Examiner that the Democratic Party “has been fully captured by the socialists within their ranks, and pushing them further left, and adopting anti-American perspectives.”
“And so, what you’ll continue to see from the Republican Party is talking about the issues that matter most to the voters, and that’s the economy, education, public safety,” Simmons said about working to keep the state red.
But 2028 is two years from now, a political lifetime, and much can change between now and then. Trump came into his second term a dominant force but was weakened by a war and tariffs that caused his approval ratings to sink. Democrats have the momentum advantage largely in spite of themselves as the national Democratic brand remains toxic.
Ron Osborne, chairman of the Alamance Democratic Party located in the Piedmont region of north-central North Carolina, said he was hopeful his party could finally flip the state at the presidential level.
But “it’s hard to say because the electorate that really decides an election — that sliver in the middle that sometimes maybe will go back and forth — you don’t know what they’re going to be thinking or whatever in two years,” Osborne said. “I believe what’s incumbent upon Democrats, if we are successful, is that we hold ourselves accountable, that we listen to constituents.”
Similarly, Western Carolina University politics professor Chris Cooper said that North Carolina remains highly competitive due to Democrats often winning statewide offices, while Republicans retain strength in legislative and congressional races.
“We’ve got 10 council of state offices,” Chris Cooper said. “These are statewide elected offices. In 2024, we elected all of them, and five were Democrats, and five were Republicans. So I see this less as softening it up for Democrats, but more just a continuation of the same theme of purple politics.”
Those include posts such as governor, attorney general, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and state superintendent, all of which are held by Democrats.
Josh Stein, the popular Democratic governor, is likely to run for reelection in 2028. He leads a GOP-controlled state House and Senate.
Democrats have maintained strength at the statewide level in the Tar Heel State. By 2028, they will have held the governorship for 12 years. A Republican has not been elected attorney general since 1896.
Chris Cooper also pointed to the growing visibility of North Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Anderson Clayton as another factor helping the party elevate itself.
Clayton “has done a really good job making herself a national figure. She’s on MS Now. She’s on CNN,” Chris Cooper said. “There’s not too many state party chairs that have that kind of profile, and so I think that has helped.”
NORTH CAROLINA DEMOCRATIC UNDERDOG HOPES A BLUE WAVE CAN TAKE DOWN HOUSE GOP CAMPAIGN CHIEF
Ultimately, Democrats are counting on voters fed up with the Trump administration to boost them not only in the Senate race but also in the presidential contest.
“I think Roy, being in the position he’s in, he’s going to help people that are downballot this election, and that’ll carry that momentum into 2028,” Gibsonville Mayor Bryant Crisp said. “And especially on the local level, we need to flip more county commissioner seats, school board seats, and House district races. I think that blue wave will kind of continue and help that happen, and then in ’28 that sets us up for the presidential election.”