Roy Cooper looks to flip North Carolina Senate seat by defeating Republican Michael Whatley

RALEIGH (AP) — Roy Cooper’s winning streak in North Carolina elections will be tested on Tuesday as the former Democratic governor faces off with President Donald Trump’s handpicked candidate Michael Whatley in a state that often sends Republicans to the U.S. Senate.

The race is one of Democrats’ best chances to flip a Republican-held seat as they try to win back control of the chamber. The incumbent, Thom Tillis, is retiring after clashing with Trump last year, setting the stage for an open contest.

Trump won North Carolina in all three of his presidential campaigns, and the Senate campaign will reveal how much his standing has slipped at a moment of widespread frustration over inflation and the war with Iran.

Whatley, 58, a former state and national party chair, has never held elected office before, and he’s trailed Cooper in fundraising. Republicans shifted campaign cash away from North Carolina in October, a sign that they were pessimistic about Whatley’s chances.

Democrats need to add four seats in the Senate to gain control, and Cooper, 69, is one of the party’s prized recruits. He previously won four terms as state attorney general and two terms as governor.

A loss would dampen Democrats’ hopes of winning the majority and potentially end Cooper’s political career with his first statewide defeat.

Cooper sticks to his centrist brand

Cooper has focused on the economy, pledging to “make stuff cost less.” He was broadly critical of Trump’s policies, especially tariffs and the Iran war. But he has typically avoided personal broadsides and consistently pledged a bipartisan approach should he reach Capitol Hill.

“I saw this administration take root, and I’d see two or three things happening almost every single day that reached a new level of chaos, any one of which we could talk about for hours. And I said, ‘Man, I’ve got to do something about this,’” Cooper said at a recent campaign rally.

Still, he promises, “I’m going to be a strong, independent senator for North Carolina.”

Cooper also has emphasized his support for public education and the expansion of Medicaid insurance coverage while he was governor, drawing contrasts with Whatley and Republicans.

Trump’s ally maintains his allegiance

Whatley has not tried to distance himself from the president, as some of his fellow Republicans have done across the country. He’s welcomed Trump and Vice President JD Vance to North Carolina for campaign events multiple times.

“I am honored that we are going to have the greatest president of our lifetime, Donald J. Trump, here,” Whatley said ahead of a metro Charlotte rally with Trump.

He has also spent most of his campaign energy promoting Trump’s policies more generally — especially the “big beautiful bill” that included tax cuts — and accusing Cooper of being soft on violent criminals as governor and attorney general.

Trump has escalated those attacks, which Cooper rejects, using the Charlotte-area rally to describe North Carolina’s cities as “blood-soaked killing fields.” North Carolina’s violent crime rate ranks in the middle third of states, according to FBI statistics.

The president also has drawn fault lines over the response to Hurricane Helene. The 2024 storm battered western North Carolina in the final months of Cooper’s second term as governor and as Trump was campaigning to return to the White House. Trump said Cooper “did nothing” to help storm victims. Cooper has long rejected that accusation, pointing to the work state and local governments did with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which Trump has since attempted to gut.

Whatley’s biggest challenge will be maximizing Republican turnout while winning over North Carolina’s growing swath of independents. Registered Democrats and Republicans in North Carolina are split about evenly, while independent voters outnumber both.

Cooper’s undefeated electoral record shows he’s been able to add independent voters to his Democratic base — enough that both of his elections as governor, 2016 and 2020, came at the same time that North Carolina voters opted for Trump over Democratic presidential nominees.

Voting hours extended at handful of sites

Polls in North Carolina were set to close at 7:30 p.m., though officials said they were extending voting hours at five sites that encountered minor technical problems earlier Tuesday.

That meant the state wouldn’t begin reporting results until after the last polling site with extended hours closes at 8:15 p.m., an attorney for the state board of elections said. He said county election officials would tally their votes without delay.

Cooper was hosting an election night watch party at a hotel in downtown Raleigh, where supporters mingled with music thumping and CNN playing on a big screen. A rousing cheer went up from the crowd when Cooper was mentioned on the broadcast.