Former Gov. Roy Cooper easily defeated Michael Whatley on Tuesday for North Carolina's open U.S. Senate seat, flipping a state as Democrats seek to regain control of the Senate.
The result wasn't a surprise, but the scale of Cooper's victory was. With early votes and almost two-thirds of precincts reporting at about 9:30 p.m., Cooper led by a staggering 21 percentage points.
The one TV at Whatley’s election night party in Gastonia was already turned off by 8 p.m. to spare the crowd from watching the Democratic surge throughout the country and in North Carolina.
A few minutes after CNN called the race for Cooper, Whatley walked to the podium.
Seconds into his speech, his microphone went out — a fitting moment for a campaign that couldn’t escape President Trump’s dismal approval ratings.
"I am convinced today, more than ever, that North Carolina is a state worth fighting for," Whatley said in his brief remarks.
In Raleigh, Cooper celebrated his massive victory.
"North Carolinians, you have made your voices heard, and they were loud," he told supporters.
Cooper, who previously served as state Senate majority leader, state attorney general and governor, held consistent leads over Whatley for the whole race. Those polling leads ranged from the double digits to mid-single digits but rarely dipped close to the margin of error.
Whatley was a first-time candidate with comparatively low name recognition. He served as chairman of the Republican National Committee and allied himself with Trump, who endorsed him. The Senate seat was open because incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis decided not to run again after clashing with Trump and facing a likely primary threat that would have pitted him against the party's MAGA base.
Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance held rallies in North Carolina, including in Gastonia, in the weeks leading up to the election in an effort to boost Whatley's chances. But they were swimming against the tide.
A record-breaking 2.8 million North Carolinians cast ballots during early voting, up 30% from 2022. Republicans made up 26% of early voters this year compared to 31% four years ago.
Whatley stuck with Trump, unlike some Republican candidates who tried to distance themselves from the president. "“I am still with that guy,” Whatley said at a rally in Gastonia in September.
Whatley's campaign focused heavily on crime. He ran frequent ads highlighting 3,500 people released from prison during the COVID-19 pandemic under a deal with civil rights advocates to relieve prison overcrowding. But Whatley was criticized for running ads that, in one case, featured a murder that happened in South Carolina. Another man featured in one of his ads, the father of a murder victim who appeared to blame Cooper, said later that he'd been tricked and thought he was taping an ad about gun violence.
Cooper heavily focused his campaign on affordability, with the slogan "Make Stuff Cost Less." He criticized Republican policies such as tariffs that raised prices for consumers, said he'd bring down healthcare and grocery costs, and talked about the need to increase public education funding.
