Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper is trying to deflect from Republicans’ crime attacks against him by releasing a new campaign advertisement that links his Senate opponent to a registered sex offender.
The 30-second spot accuses Michael Whatley of tapping Harvey Lee West to serve within the North Carolina Republican Party. West was required to register as a sex offender after he was released from state custody in 2006. He pleaded guilty to five counts of taking indecent liberties with a child in 2000, but he later maintained his innocence.
Whatley led the state party from 2019 to 2024 before heading the Republican National Committee from 2024 to 2025.
“When Michael Whatley ran the North Carolina Republican Party, he could have picked anyone to be in senior leadership,” a narrator said in the video. “Whatley chose Harvey Lee West, a registered sex offender, appointing West after he spent six years in prison for sex crimes against children. And West said he was open about his past from Day One. Whatley even let West attend events with kids.”
“Michael Whatley knew, and that tells you everything you need to know about him,” the narrator concluded.
As chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, Whatley appointed West to the Plan of Organization Committee in 2021 and 2024. Whatley reportedly appointed West to the state party’s 1st Congressional District Committee, according to the Asheville Watchdog. However, West disputed the report, claiming he was appointed by Whatley to lead the district committee.
Still, Cooper’s ad ran with the idea of tying Whatley to West in an effort to discredit the Trump-backed Republican candidate.
The former governor, a Democrat, has faced numerous political attacks from Republicans, which mostly focus on what they call his soft-on-crime record. For instance, Republican groups targeted Cooper for agreeing to a 2020 civil rights lawsuit settlement that released roughly 3,500 inmates in the state to protect them from being exposed to COVID-19. At least 18 of the inmates were murderers, according to an August ad from the Senate Leadership Fund.
Cooper has also been linked to a registered sex offender. The North Carolina Republican Party accused the Democrat of “hanging out” with Chad Turner, who was convicted in 2000 of committing a lewd act with a 15-year-old in South Carolina. Turner now leads the Carolinas LGBT Chamber of Commerce in Charlotte. The North Carolina Republican Party claimed Cooper promoted Turner, even though the state’s governor doesn’t tap anyone for that particular position.
Cooper and Whatley started peddling the allegations of their opponent being tied to a registered sex offender earlier this year as their race got underway.
The candidates are running to replace retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) in the general election. The Senate election is one of the most closely watched this election cycle as Republicans try to retain their majority in the upper chamber.
Vice President JD Vance stumped for Whatley on Monday at a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he told supporters that electing Whatley would help advance the Trump administration’s agenda for the next two years.
“Friends, there is more work to do, of course,” Vance said. “It will take more time and the support, of course, of our great American people to finish the job. But we can’t get it done. We can’t keep growing our economy. We can’t secure the border. We can’t support American workers and families unless we have allies in Congress.”
The prospect of Whatley’s victory in November appears to be dim. The latest polls show Cooper consistently leading his Republican opponent by a significant margin.