Cooper claims North Carolina Senate seat in midterm win

In Raleigh, North Carolina, Democrat Roy Cooper secured the state's open U.S. Senate seat on Tuesday. The victory marks a key shift in Senate control for the Democratic Party. Cooper, who served as governor from 2017 to 2024, becomes the first Democrat elected to the Senate from North Carolina since 2008.

Cooper defeated Michael Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chair. President Donald Trump selected Whatley to replace retiring GOP Senator Thom Tillis. National Democratic groups and Cooper significantly outspent Whatley and Republican rivals during the campaign. A few weeks before the election, national GOP organizations removed their television advertisements from North Carolina. They redirected those funds to other battleground states, including Kansas.

Cooper centered his campaign on affordability issues. His campaign stops across the state were branded as the "Make Stuff Cost Less" tour. Whatley focused his messaging on crime and immigration. He criticized Cooper over a legal settlement from the pandemic era that released inmates from state prisons to address overcrowding. Polls indicated that the economy, not crime, was the primary concern for North Carolina voters this year.

Whatley ran for elected office for the first time in this race. Cooper's campaign portrayed Whatley as a lobbyist for Big Oil. They argued he would become a rubber stamp for Trump in the Senate. Patrick Sebastian, a Republican strategist who did not work on the Whatley campaign, said the party's candidate should have prioritized the economy more heavily.

"Really it's the economy is Issue A and then Issue B is probably government corruption, that people are following the most," Sebastian said. "So when we're not talking about those issues, it's going to be hard to connect with people that go to Walmart for their groceries and can only get 80% of what they used to buy because the prices have up."

The race was initially expected to be one of the most competitive and expensive in the country. However, Whatley never led in polling, and Cooper's lead widened over the course of the campaign. Pro-Whatley television ads largely disappeared in October. Trump and Vice President Vance held multiple rallies in North Carolina during the final weeks of the campaign. Sebastian said those visits likely helped improve base turnout for GOP voters but were not enough to save the campaign.

Tillis announced in 2025 that he would not seek reelection. Trump had threatened him with a primary challenger for failing to support the president's tax cut and spending bill. Tillis has been promoting a new book criticizing fellow Republicans rather than campaigning for Whatley.