North Carolina’s 2026 Senate race is coming into focus as former Gov. Roy Cooper prepares to run and Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, backed by President Donald Trump and GOP leadership, positions himself as the party’s likely nominee.
Sen. Thom Tillis’s (R-NC) decision to step aside has turned North Carolina into one of 2026’s top Senate battlegrounds, opening a high-stakes contest in a state where Republicans have won seven of the last eight races. Whatley intends to run after Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, declined to launch a bid, according to multiple people familiar with the decision.
Democrats, meanwhile, see a new opportunity with Cooper, a popular former governor and one of their top recruits, expected to jump in, and hope a midterm election environment that traditionally favors the party out of power will help offset the state’s Republican lean.
Political observers say the North Carolina race is likely to become one of the most competitive and closely watched contests in the country.
“At the very least, North Carolina is one of the two, if not the most critical race in the country,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. “You’ve got a state that trends Republican at the federal level, but a Democrat in Roy Cooper who may have a slight advantage in candidate quality, which makes this a true toss-up.”
Whatley enters the race with the institutional backing of the party but little name recognition among average voters in the state.
“He has very high name recognition among the political class,” Cooper said. “The challenge will be translating that elite popularity into mass appeal, especially with parts of the GOP base that consider him too close to the establishment.”
Trump gave his “complete and total endorsement” to Whatley for U.S. Senate in North Carolina in a Truth Social post on Thursday night, calling him a strong leader on border security, crime, taxes, veterans, and the Second Amendment, and urging voters to support him as someone who “will never let you down.”
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) welcomed the endorsement, calling Whatley a strong America First conservative and the GOP’s best chance to keep North Carolina’s Senate seat in 2026.
Trump’s backing, political science professor Cooper noted, is likely what cleared the Republican primary field.
“It’s not that it’s Whatley, it’s that Whatley is holding hands with Donald Trump,” he said. “Without that, you might’ve seen a much more crowded race.”
Whatley’s decision to run, reported by Politico on Thursday, comes as Republicans believe the chairman, a longtime party insider with deep ties to Trump, offers their strongest path to keeping the seat red. Internal and public polling reviewed by GOP strategists shows a pro-Trump Republican outperforming a non-Trump-aligned candidate by double digits against Cooper.
Whatley’s candidacy has been carefully orchestrated behind the scenes. Republican operatives began quietly floating his name as a top contender earlier this year, not due to anticipation of Tillis’s retirement but in response to slumping approval numbers and concerning internal polling. Scott met with Whatley to discuss a possible run, and Trump personally called this week, according to insiders, urging him to launch a campaign.
The timing of Whatley’s announcement is still fluid, but Republicans familiar with the planning expect it to happen in North Carolina as early as next week. While the rollout is being coordinated with Trump’s team, Whatley is expected to remain RNC chairman until at least the party’s summer meeting next month, when Trump is likely to name a successor and seek ratification by committee members.
Even Republicans acknowledge that Cooper may start the race with a slight edge.
“If you put a gun to my head, I’d say it begins as a 51-49 race in Cooper’s favor,” said Dallas Woodhouse, a former executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party. “But that doesn’t mean it stays that way. He’s going to experience a very different campaign than he ever has before.”
Woodhouse said Cooper won’t enjoy the financial dominance he’s had in past statewide bids. “He won’t be outspending his opponent five-to-one like he did in his governor’s races,” he said. “There’s going to be plenty of money for both sides.”
Still, Republicans believe the structural dynamics give them a real path to victory. Woodhouse pointed to the state’s long track record of electing Republicans to the Senate, and noted that Democratic senators from North Carolina rarely last more than one term. “North Carolina just doesn’t like sending Democrats to the U.S. Senate,” he said.
He also cited long-term voter registration trends as a warning sign for Democrats. Since 2008, the last time the party won a Senate seat in the state, Democrats have lost roughly half a million registered voters, while Republicans have gained nearly 300,000.
“That’s a three-quarters-of-a-million swing,” Woodhouse said. “There are simply more available Republican voters in this state than ever before.”
Democrats say Cooper brings a unique blend of political strength, policy accomplishments, and fundraising power, making him one of their most formidable Senate contenders in years.
“He’s never lost a race, he left office with high approval ratings in a state Trump carried twice, and he has a national donor network after being vetted for vice president,” said Doug Wilson, a longtime Democratic strategist based in North Carolina. “That’s not someone you can paint as an AOC-style liberal. Voters know him. They’ve put him in office twice.”
Tillis, first elected in 2014, delivered a blistering floor speech last month condemning Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill, arguing that the proposed Medicaid cuts would “betray the promise Donald Trump made” to voters. He was one of only two Republicans to oppose the bill, a move that prompted Trump to threaten support for a primary challenger. The following day, Tillis announced he would not seek reelection.
Democrats are likely to seize on Tillis’s warning that the megabill “will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid” as they target the eventual GOP nominee. His sharp criticism of healthcare is expected to feature prominently in Democratic messaging nationwide, especially as several congressional Republicans have publicly vowed not to cut Medicaid.
Wilson said he believes the state’s Medicaid expansion, which Cooper negotiated on a bipartisan basis, will become a defining issue.
“Now those gains are under threat from the GOP’s big, beautiful bill,” he said, referencing cuts to federal Medicaid spending. “Republicans are going to have to explain whether they support slashing healthcare to fund more tax breaks.”
The contrast between Cooper’s governing record and Whatley’s national party résumé could be a central dynamic in the race.
“This won’t be a battle of personalities, it’s not AOC versus MTG,” Wilson said. “It’ll be a contest between two candidates from rural North Carolina who represent very different governing philosophies.”
Wilson added that while the state’s Republican tilt and voter registration shifts present challenges, Democrats see a growing opportunity among independent and newly arrived voters, particularly in urban centers such as Charlotte and Raleigh.
“We’ve got to rebuild the coalition that helped us win in 2008,” he said. “And we believe Cooper is the candidate who can do that.”
WHATLEY TO RUN FOR NORTH CAROLINA SENATE SEAT AFTER LARA TRUMP OPTS OUT: REPORT
North Carolina has emerged as one of the nation’s most closely contested states, with razor-thin margins defining recent elections. Trump won the state by just over 3 points in 2024, while Senate races have been similarly tight. Tillis edged out Cal Cunningham by less than 2 points in 2020, and Sen. Ted Budd defeated former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley by about 3 points in 2022. With unaffiliated voters now surpassing registered Democrats and Republicans, the state remains one of the most competitive and pivotal battlegrounds in the country.
“This race won’t just define North Carolina, it could help decide control of the Senate,” said Cooper, the political science professor. “It’s a clash between two known quantities with very different brands of leadership, and the entire country will be watching.”