With a full-throated endorsement of President Donald Trump’s agenda, Michael Whatley on Thursday kicked off his campaign against Democrat Roy Cooper for North Carolina’s open Senate seat.
“President Trump deserves an ally and North Carolina deserves a strong conservative voice in the Senate,” the Republican National Committee chairman told a crowd of supporters in the Charlotte suburb of Gastonia. “I will be that voice.”
Trump endorsed Whatley last week in the race to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis. In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform, the president lauded Whatley’s stewardship of the RNC and said he would make an “unbelievable” senator. The endorsement followed a decision by Lara Trump, a North Carolina native and the president’s daughter-in-law, to take herself out of contention for the seat after “much consideration and heartfelt discussions with my family, friends, and supporters.”
Whatley, a former chair of the North Carolina GOP, joins a Republican primary field that already includes retired furniture manufacturing executive Andy Nilsson and author Don Brown, who had accused Tillis of being insufficiently supportive of Trump. But with the backing of Trump and the campaign arm of Senate Republicans, Whatley appears well-positioned to secure the GOP nomination.
Cooper, a former two-term governor seen as a top recruit for Democrats, looks set to have the Democratic primary to himself, with former Rep. Wiley Nickel exiting the race Tuesday and endorsing him.
A race between Whatley and Cooper is expected to be one of the cycle’s most costly and closely watched. Senate Republicans, who currently hold 53 seats, face a favorable map as they look to maintain control of the chamber. Democratic hopes of winning the Senate rest largely on winning in Republican-leaning territory and flipping the North Carolina seat will be crucial to their chances of winning the majority.
Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the Senate race in North Carolina a Toss-up.
Whatley’s entry comes about a month after Tillis surprised political observers by announcing he wouldn’t seek reelection. The second-term senator was facing intense backlash over his opposition to Republicans’ massive tax and spending legislation, with Trump threatening to support a primary opponent against him.
Unlike Tillis, Whatley praised Trump’s signature domestic policy measure, which the president signed into law earlier this month.
“Congress has made President Trump’s middle class tax cuts permanent, and there’s now no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security,’’ he said. “President Trump’s one big, beautiful bill gave our troops important benefits and better equipment.”
Whatley painted Cooper as a tax-raising leftist who supported “woke” ideology and failed to adequately respond when a hurricane ripped through the state last year.
He also sought to tie Cooper to prominent progressives such as New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, among others.
“Roy Cooper may pretend to be different from the radical extremists that run today’s Democratic Party, but he is all in on their agenda,’’ Whatley said. “Roy Cooper has completely walked away from the North Carolina values that we hold dear.”
A spokesperson for the Senate Democrats’ top super PAC released a pithy statement in response to Whatley’s announcement: “Welcome to the race. You’re going to lose,” Senate Majority PAC’s Lauren French said.
And the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee slammed the candidate as a “D.C. insider, lifelong political operative, and Big Oil lobbyist.”
“Republicans are stuck with Whatley after Senator Tillis retired rather than run on the GOP’s toxic agenda,” DSCC spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement.
In his Thursday remarks, Whatley invoked his own background, growing up in a middle class household in Blowing Rock and working to put himself through law school.
He recounted how he became a Republican in 1981, while watching President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration and hearing the news that Iran was releasing 52 U.S. hostages.
“It was a quick lesson that even a 12-year-old kid could pick up: in peace through strength, and it was an important lesson in understanding that elections have consequences,’’ he said.
With his entry into the Senate race, Whatley will try to keep North Carolina Republicans’ winning streak in statewide federal elections going into 2026. Dating back to 2010, GOP candidates have won five straight Senate elections and four consecutive presidential elections in the battleground state.
The last Democrat to win a Senate race in the Tar Heel State was Kay Hagan in 2008. She lost reelection to Tillis in 2014.
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