Former Gov. Roy Cooper hinted Saturday at an expected run for U.S. Senate, slammed Washington Republicans and underscored his efforts to expand health care in North Carolina — messages that are likely to be among the Democrat’s key talking points in the months ahead as he campaigns for the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis.
“Look at what’s happening in Washington,” Cooper told North Carolina Democrats who gathered Saturday at the state party’s annual Unity Dinner in Raleigh. “They are running up our debt. They are disrespecting our veterans. They’re cutting help for the hungry, and they’re ripping away health care from millions of people, all to give tax breaks to the millionaires and the billionaires. And it’s not right.”
Republicans responded to Cooper’s speech quickly, painting him as a career politician who sides with the radical left.
“We’ve seen enough of elitist Roy Cooper and politicians like him who make their living off taxpayers while supporting policies making life harder and unaffordable for North Carolina families,” North Carolina Republican Party spokesman Matt Mercer said in a statement after Cooper’s speech.
Cooper has decided to run, people familiar with his plans have told WRAL, but he hasn’t officially announced his campaign. That’s expected to come early next week. But Cooper and other speakers hinted at the likelihood.
Anita Earls, a state Supreme Court justice, introduced Cooper as the former governor “and, we hope, soon-to-be senator.”
During his speech, Cooper urged all the Democrats who were expected to run for office to stand up. Without acknowledging whether or not he himself would run, Cooper quipped: “Hey, I’m not sitting down, am I?” The remark drew a standing ovation.
Cooper’s public comments were his first since news emerged that he plans to run for the seat. Tillis bowed out of the race after drawing President Donald Trump’s ire for opposing Trump’s tax-and-spending bill that sponsors called The One Big Beautiful Bill. Tillis voted against it because it threatens health care provided to North Carolinians through Medicaid, the federal government insurance program for the poor and disabled.
Cooper used Democrats’ pursuit of Medicaid expansion as a reason the party should continue to fight for its beliefs at a time when he said democracy seems fragile.
“When they spent a decade blocking Medicaid expansion, we didn’t just give up and let hope fade away,” he said. “We did something, and that’s how we got health care for 675,000 working people in North Carolina.”
Medicaid expansion was Cooper’s signature achievement during his time as governor. He worked for years to convince the Republican-led legislature to expand coverage in North Carolina — a move that brought in billions of dollars a year for the state’s health care industry by providing health insurance for hundreds of thousands of previously uninsured residents.
Political analysts expect Cooper to win the Democratic primary and ultimately take on Michael Whatley, the Republican National Committee chairman who President Donald Trump publicly encouraged to run.
Whatley, who ran the North Carolina Republican Party for five years before moving to the RNC, is expected to launch a U.S. Senate campaign in the coming days that focuses on defending Trump’s record on taxes, immigration, law enforcement and gun rights.
Other Republicans Don Brown and Andy Nilsson have already launched campaigns for Tillis’s seat. Trump’s endorsement would give Whatley an advantage over the rest of the GOP field, political analysts say.
Whately is considered the favorite after Trump’s daughter-in-law, Wilmington native Lara Trump, said Thursday that she wouldn’t seek the GOP nomination for the seat. U.S. Rep. Pat Harrigan — a Republican who represents North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District, which runs from Winston-Salem to Charlotte’s northern suburbs — was also considered a possibility until he said on social media Saturday that he would seek reelection in the U.S. House.
High stakes
Democrats are trying to flip at least four Senate seats to gain control of the chamber for the final two years of Trump’s second term. To that end, the party is expected to invest millions in battleground states — especially North Carolina, which some political analysts believe will host the most competitive race in next year’s election cycle.
Democrats and many political analysts say Cooper gives the party the best chance of winning its first U.S. Senate race since 2008, when Kay Hagan defeated Elizabeth Dole.
Cooper — a two-term governor who also served in the state legislature and as attorney general — is a prolific fundraiser and hasn’t lost an election in a political career dating to the mid-1980s. The Democrat managed to win North Carolina and remain popular in polls even in years when Donald Trump won the state’s electoral college votes — a performance that put Cooper on the running-mate short list for Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential run.
Political candidates can save money for the general election by avoiding competitive primaries — and the path appears to be clearing for Cooper. Former U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel, who launched a campaign for the senate seat last year, is expected to suspend his U.S. Senate campaign early next week and endorse Cooper, people familiar with the Cary lawyer’s plans told WRAL on Friday.
On stage in Raleigh, Democratic officials, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said wants to see what Cooper does next.
“I speak for Democratic governors across the country when I say we can’t wait to support you in the next stage of your career,” Pritzker said.
Looking ahead
While Cooper brings excitement to party loyalists, Democrats warned their peers not to make any assumptions about next year’s races.
Democrats came up short in every statewide race in the 2022 midterms, including elections for U.S. Senate and state Supreme Court. Whatley, Trump’s pick to succeed Tillis, led the state Republican Party that year and has been credited with helping the GOP sweep the judicial races.
Congressional seats, legislative seats, and Earls’ state Supreme Court seat are up for election next year, too. And those races could be influenced by the U.S. Senate race at the top of state ballots. Republicans hold a 5-2 majority on the state’s high court. Democrats need Earls win reelection in order to have a shot at regaining a majority on the court in 2028.
“The law will become our most powerful tool in righting the wrongs that partisan politics have inflicted upon our state and our country,” Earls said. “We have the wind at our backs. The momentum is with us. It’s time to stand up for our rights.”
After Tillis dropped out of the race, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent a letter to donors saying that it is “more confident than ever” that the GOP will be able to keep the North Carolina seat red.
The NRSC is the leading Washington, D.C., group that helps elect Republicans to the U.S. Senate. Numerous internal polls of the race showed Tillis down at least 9 points in hypothetical head-to-head races against Democrats, according to a Republican operative with direct knowledge of the polls. Those same polls also showed a generic Republican outperforming Tillis against Cooper.
The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan group that analyzes national politics, lists the race as a tossup that doesn’t favor either party. The group had rated the seat as “lean Republican” until Tillis dropped out.
Whatley, who led the state GOP for five years, has been an ally of Trump’s since he entered the 2016 race for president. In a social media post Thursday, Trump said Whatley is “fantastic at everything he does” and called on North Carolinians to support his candidacy.
“Mike would make an unbelievable senator from North Carolina,” Trump said. “So, should Michael Whatley run for the Senate, please let this notification represent my complete and total endorsement. He will never let you down!”
While Whatley’s strength is as an insider who has deep relationships with the party’s powerbrokers and fundraisers, his inexperience as a candidate could be a challenge, according to David McLennan, a political scientist at Meredith College in Raleigh.
“Cooper’s a seasoned veteran with lots of connections, money, that sort of thing,” McLennan said. “So right now, if those are the two finalists for the Senate position, you’d have to say Cooper’s a slight favorite in a very divided state.”
While Cooper didn’t officially launch a campaign Saturday night, his words brought comfort to Democrats who hope to see him run.
Asked about Cooper’s comments after the dinner, House Minority Leader Robert Reives said: “Is this the part where I play it cool and pretend like I wasn’t excited?”