MAGA candidate 'out of time' to bail on Trump’s sinking ship

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley speaks next to U.S. President Donald Trump, during a campaign rally in support of Whatley, at Gastonia Municipal Airport in Gastonia, North Carolina, U.S., September 16, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

While many Republican candidates have been rushing to distance themselves from President Donald Trump as his approval ratings have plunged to historic lows, one is not only “still with” him, but continues to back his most unpopular policies. This is according to new reporting from the New York Times, which delved into why North Carlonina Senate candidate Michael Whatley has stayed on board even as the MAGA ship sinks.

Recent weeks have seen a string of GOP candidates remove pro-Trump messaging from their websites, but Whatley “spoke at Mr. Trump’s midterm convention. He stood by the Iran war. He opposed blanket pauses on building new data centers.” The convention flopped, and the war and data centers are loathed across the political spectrum, but still Whatley “welcomed visits last week and this week from Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance, a distinction no other Republican Senate candidate can claim.” As he said of Trump during a recent rally, “I am still with that guy.”

But as the Times notes, this strategy is a big gamble. “With six weeks to go until the election, Mr. Whatley is running out of time to win his bet that lashing himself to a president, whose ratings are near historic lows, to draw out the MAGA base will help more than it hurts,” writes the Times. “Mr. Whatley lags behind his Democratic opponent in polls, is at risk of losing critical funding from outside groups and is running for a Senate seat now seen as the likeliest in the country to flip in November.”

“Mr. Whatley may have no other choice,” however, because as the Times explains, his political career is strongly bound to Trump, who “handpicked him to chair the Republican National Committee in early 2024, a job he held until last fall. Having never run for office, he entered the Senate race as an unknown to many voters, relying on his Trump ties to try to hold a seat in a state that Mr. Trump has won three times. He is seeking to replace Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican who has repeatedly disagreed with the president and decided to retire after Mr. Trump threatened him with a primary challenger.”

Polling well behind his opponent, Whatley has asserted that he feels “very good” about the race, claiming the “numbers are moving in our direction.” But on Monday, reports the Times, “with the days ticking down for Mr. Whatley to show that he can narrow [his opponent’s] lead, a Republican-aligned super PAC, Old North Action, removed $6.5 million in television ad reservations” – a sign that the party is losing confidence in his campaign. According to the Times, “Mr. Tillis, who has not endorsed in the race, has said that Mr. Whatley should find ways to separate himself from Mr. Trump. Mr. Whatley has tried a different tack: changing the subject from the cost of living, which polls show to be the voters’ top concern. According to Mr. Whatley, the ‘No. 1 issue’ is crime. That has been a tough case to make with gas prices averaging more than $4 a gallon, and polls showing that the public has lost trust in Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy.” What’s more, writes the Times, while he attempts to portray his opponent, former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, as a radical, “some Republicans concede that most voters have a positive opinion of Mr. Cooper, 69, who is almost universally known to North Carolinians as a roll-up-his-sleeves centrist.”

Even so, Whatley focuses his messaging on targeting Cooper rather than distancing from Trump. According to the Times, “He argued that Mr. Cooper had bungled the initial response to Hurricane Helene, which devastated parts of western North Carolina two years ago. Last year, Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Whatley to help lead recovery efforts.” At the rally for Whatley, “Trump said his administration ‘spent more than $2 billion’ on hurricane relief, though he noted that the state was waiting for more money.”

“I’m going to get that to you, Michael,” Trump told Whatley. Then, he continued: “Now, if Michael loses, I’m not sending it, OK? No, I’m only kidding. You’re getting it. You’re going to get it, Michael.”

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