Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley speaks during a news conference formally announcing the endorsement he received from the North Carolina Police Benevolent Association on Thursday, July 9, 2026, at his campaign headquarters in Raleigh.
Travis Long
tlong@newsobserver.com
North Carolinians who have been inundated with TV campaign commercials may start noticing a gap in ads for Senate candidate Michael Whatley.
The Whatley campaign has temporarily pulled ads on television, a campaign source told McClatchy.
The source said this is a short-term adjustment of who the campaign is targeting.
“We are confident we have the resources to target our late-breaking supporters and win on Election Day,” the source said.
The campaign’s decision comes as national Republicans pull away from North Carolina’s Senate race to focus on other candidates nationwide.
Whatley, 58, a Republican from Gastonia, is facing off against former Gov. Roy Cooper, 69, a Democrat from Raleigh.
Cooper spent nearly 40 years in North Carolina politics serving in both the state House and Senate, four terms as attorney general and two terms as governor, before being term-limited.
Whatley has served in both behind the scenes positions as an energy industry lobbyist and as chief of staff for former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, and as the face of the Republican Party as chairman on both the state and national levels.
But since the two men entered the race, in July 2025, Cooper has led every poll, often by double digits.
And the polls consistently show that Whatley lacks name recognition.
For weeks, rumors swirled that Republican groups, like the Senate Leadership Fund, would withdraw spending in the race to support Whatley.
The Senate Leadership Fund is the largest Republican super PAC focused on maintaining the majority.
Last week, SLF confirmed it would move its spending from Whatley’s campaign to Kansas — not a typical battleground — where Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican, is losing traction against Democrat Adam Hamilton, a pastor who founded the country’s largest Methodist church, Semafor first reported.
But SLF wasn’t the only group withdrawing support from Whatley’s campaign. Old North Action withdrew a $6.5 million investment, Semafor reported, and Americans for Prosperity Action, an early supporter of Whatley’s campaign, left North Carolina off a list last week of $22 million in ad buys the group made around the country.
That resulted in WinSenate, a Democratic super PAC focused on winning the Senate majority, withdrawing $500,000 in TV advertising and roughly $50,000 in digital advertising this week, The Hill reported.
North Carolina is a purple state that tends to elect Republican presidents and Democratic governors in the same elections.
Political observers believed North Carolina’s Senate race could break spending records, perhaps with as much as $1 billion, as Cooper seemed likely to go up against Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
Instead, Tillis pulled out of the race and President Donald Trump then handpicked Whatley to take Tillis’ place on the ticket.
According to the Federal Election Commission, Cooper’s campaign has spent more than $14 million and Whatley has spent nearly $8 million.
OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign funding, reports $45 million raised between the two campaigns.
This story was originally published October 7, 2026 at 4:02 PM.
McClatchy DC
Danielle Battaglia is the congressional impact reporter for The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer, leading coverage of the impact of North Carolina’s congressional delegation and the White House. Her career has spanned three North Carolina newsrooms where she has covered crime, courts and local, state and national politics. She has won two McClatchy President’s awards and numerous national and state awards for her work.