Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper defeated Republican Michael Whatley for the state’s open Senate seat, succeeding outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and flipping a must-win seat in Democrats’ push to flip the upper chamber.
The Senate race was called for Cooper at 8:23 p.m. by the Associated Press. Cooper garnered 66.8% against Whatley’s 31.6%, with 56% of the vote counted. Cooper’s win is Democrats’ first flip of the night.
The North Carolina Senate seat was one of the most important battleground races that Republicans were hoping to block Democrats from winning. But as the campaign went on, Cooper took a polling and fundraising lead over Whatley that never let up.
By the fall, the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), had cut back its investment in the race. The Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), also stopped advertising in the state as Democrats became more confident that Cooper would win. Other Republican groups, including Americans for Prosperity Action, also quietly stopped spending money in the race or advertising for Whatley.
In the lead-up to Election Day, Tillis warned in an interview that Whatley’s background as a Trump loyalist likely hurt him in an election that is widely viewed as a rebuke of President Donald Trump.
“I think Michael’s problem is he’s got a patently partisan resume, right?” the senator told Politico. “I mean, he was a lobbyist, but then he was the state party chair, did a fairly good job there, and then the RNC chair. You know, in a cycle where we knew we were going to have headwinds for the Republican Party, putting somebody forth like that just creates a deeper, a steeper hill for them to climb.”
Part of Cooper’s appeal came from his tenure as a popular two-term governor who never lost a statewide race. Yet, Republicans also tried to use that background against Cooper by arguing his tenure as chief executive coincided with a rise in crime across North Carolina.
Trump recruited Whatley to run. The GOP candidate stuck close to the president on most issues, even as polls showed voters upset at the high cost of living and the Iran war.
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The final Elon University poll before the election showed Cooper leading Whatley by double digits, 52%-39%. The RealClearPolitics polling average showed Cooper at a nearly 10-point advantage over Whatley with less than two weeks before Election Day.
Trump carried North Carolina in all three of his presidential campaigns by single digits.