Former Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper will run for Senate in 2026

In an open-seat race that is anticipated to be among the most competitive in 2026, Democrats will have a proven statewide winner in North Carolina when former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper runs for the U.S. Senate.

Cooper announced the news on Monday through a video that was posted to his campaign website and social media accounts. In the contest to replace retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, the former two-term governor will instantly emerge as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.

According to two people familiar with his thinking who were not authorized to speak publicly before an official announcement, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley intends to run for the GOP nomination with President Donald Trump’s approval.

Following the death of the president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, Trump endorsed Whatley, the former chairman of the North Carolina GOP.

In case you missed it, GOP Sen. Thom Tillis has announced that he will not run for reelection following his opposition to the Trump bill.

Democrats, who view the open seat as a top pick-up opportunity in what will be a difficult year, consider Cooper’s campaign a significant recruiting victory. Democrats need to win four seats in order to regain the majority in 2026, and the majority of the races are in states that Trump won handily the previous year. North Carolina was one of Trump’s closest victories, with a margin of roughly 3 percentage points.

On Thursday night, Trump posted an endorsement of Whatley on his Truth Social platform, saying that Mike would be an incredible senator from North Carolina if he were to run.

For months, former U.S. Representative Wiley Nickel has been running for the Democratic nomination. March 3 would be the date of the party primary.

Cooper, 68, has been on the statewide ballot for 25 years. Prior to winning the governorship in 2016, he served as attorney general for 16 years.

Cooper, who has been in politics for almost 40 years, has a knack for winning in a state where Republicans currently control both the legislature and the appeals courts. Cooper was prohibited by state law from running for governor a third time in a row. He was teaching at Harvard for the spring.

Long before Tillis declared on June 29 that he would not run for a third term, state and national Democrats were clamoring for Cooper to enter the race. That announcement followed Trump’s vow to support a primary opponent after Tillis objected to Medicaid cuts in the president’s tax break and budget cut package.

In North Carolina, where independent voters typically support Republicans in federal elections, Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat since 2008. Due to the large number of television markets, statewide campaigns can be extremely expensive, with hundreds of millions of dollars anticipated to be spent.

Despite occasionally reaching an agreement with GOP opponents, Cooper’s recent political past has portrayed him as a fighter against what he views as radical Republican policies.

Cooper said, “If you’re going to run for public office again, you must have your heart and soul in it, you must have the fire in your belly,” in response to an Associated Press question about a Senate candidacy last December.

In his capacity as governor, he guided the state through the coronavirus pandemic, Hurricanes Florence and Helene, and a statute that served as a precursor to the cultural conflicts around transgender people’s use to public facilities. Early in Cooper’s first term, the bathroom bill was repealed, and the state’s economy flourished under his leadership, with significant job announcements and low unemployment.

Cooper was unsuccessful in blocking legislation that significantly increased private school vouchers and restricted access to abortion, even if he was successful in getting Medicaid expansion approved and a historic greenhouse gasses law passed.

Cooper claimed it wasn’t the appropriate moment for him and North Carolina, but his alleged achievements in 2024 elevated his national image and made him a possible running mate for Kamala Harris.

Republicans have claimed that Cooper is still politically vulnerable, pointing to what they see as an extreme record of opposing school choice and supporting abortion rights that resulted in numerous vetoes.

Additionally, they have pointed to a gubernatorial administration that was characterized by executive orders that limited business operations and school instruction during COVID-19, the state Department of Transportation’s spending overruns, its response to Hurricane Helene, and delays in rebuilding or renovating homes following Hurricanes Matthew and Florence. Republicans give themselves credit for the booming economy by deregulating and lowering taxes.

Far-right Republicans and ardent Trump followers, who had been dissatisfied for years with Tillis’s readiness to question Trump’s policies and Cabinet agency selections, were encouraged by his retirement announcement.

During the 2024 election campaign, Republicans had shown deference to the president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, a popular former RNC co-chair alongside Whatley, a native of North Carolina, and a graduate of North Carolina State University. On Thursday, she announced on the social media site X that she will not run for the Senate.