Former Gov. Roy Cooper addresses hundreds of supporters at an April 9, 2026 rally in Durham. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)
Republicans in North Carolina are begging the national party to dump more money into its Senate race, according to Politico, as Democratic candidate Roy Cooper looks increasingly unstoppable in the state that was once seen as reliably red.
Cooper is currently running to fill the seat being vacated by Republican Trump critic Sen. Thom Tillis, who has opted to retire after his current term. He will face former RNC Chair Michael Whatley in the general election, with polls recently shifting the race to "lean Democrat" amid the GOP's increasingly brutal midterm headwinds.
Cooper has long been considered the Democratic Party's best hope for flipping a Senate seat this cycle, given his popularity in the state as its former governor. His potential win would mark a major coup for the party in the state, given that it swung for Trump in the last three presidential races and has not gone for a Democratic president since Barack Obama in 2008, which also marked the last time a Democrat won a Senate race in the Tarheel State.
In a Sunday report, Politico revealed that the North Carolina GOP is hoping that they can avert a Cooper win if Washington sends in the "cavalry," in the form of more spending, which they believe could help turn around his polling and fundraising deficits, as well as his biggest overall problem against Cooper. To date, Cooper has raised north of $13 million, compared to Whatley's much more modest $5 million haul.
"Republicans believe Whatley still has time to turn around those steep deficits — but only if the national GOP opens its deep pockets sooner than later, according to interviews with nearly a dozen North Carolina Republicans and national strategists," Politico detailed. "A massive infusion of cash ahead of the typical late summer and early fall spending spree, they say, would combat Whatley’s biggest problem: a lack of name ID."
“He has an uphill climb,” Tuesday Sauer, chair of the Bertie County GOP, told the outlet. “Even though he was the RNC chair, a lot of people who aren’t politically involved really don’t know who Michael Whatley is.”
Some Republicans told Politico that Whatley's campaign has, so far, been too "generic" to compete with Cooper, who the outlet described as a "blue-chip opponent" from the left. This mediocre approach, the party worries, just "won’t cut it" given the brutal national environment for Republicans amid voter revolt against Trump's failures.
“That money needs to be brought to North Carolina, so the people of North Carolina can be reminded of what a crappy Governor Roy Cooper was,” GOP state Sen. Amy Galey told Politico, referring to the "massive $350 million warchest" of fundraising hauls held by Trump's MAGA Inc. PAC.
“Getting his name, face recognition in 100 counties is tough, especially in North Carolina, with just plain geographics of going from Manteo to Murphy,” another GOP state lawmaker, Rep. Donnie Loftis, added. “It comes down to funding. That money drives your message, and if you don’t have the money, you can’t get your message out there.”
“Whatley and his allies have been caught lying time and again, but the truth is Roy Cooper spent his career locking up criminals while Whatley pushed for prisoners to be released during COVID,” Cooper campaign spokesperson Kate Smart said in a statement to Politico.
“The reality of all of it is that between Republican super PACs and the RNC, they just have way more money,” Morgan Jackson, a veteran North Carolina Democratic strategist and adviser to Cooper, added. “There’s no white horse coming, the way that Republicans are waiting on their savior to come.”