The Washington Post this morning has a story about the Senate race in North Carolina. It’s the latest in a number of articles from national outlets that suggest Republicans believe North Carolina is getting out of reach. What’s different about this one is the title. It reads, “GOP appears deeply worried about Senate race in N.C., a once reliable state.” That’s not how I see North Carolina, but I think it’s the misperception of too many national journalists.
North Carolina has never been “reliable” for Republicans. It’s always been a fight, even if Republicans have won most presidential races over the past fifty years. Senate races have been notoriously competitive, and for the past twenty years the GOP has benefited from fundamentals. In particular, there’s been no midterm Senate race with a Republican president in the White House since 2002—until now.
In the two midterms in the past 20 years when the president was a Republican, 2006 and 2018, Democrats had banner years. Had North Carolina had Senate races those years, Democrats almost certainly would have won. The narrative would be significantly different.
As I’ve said before, Thom Tillis is the luckiest politician in recent memory. In 2014, he caught a break in his race against incumbent Kay Hagan. She almost held off Tillis in a wave election until the environment deteriorated because of the Ebola scare and ISIS executing journalists on live video. In the end, she lost by less than two points.
In 2020, Tillis got lucky again. This time, as an incumbent senator, he faced Cal Cunningham. Cunningham got caught in a sexting scandal just weeks before the election. Again, Tillis won by less than two points, and his own pollster said he would likely have lost without the scandal.
So here’s my point. Democrats, with a solid candidate, were always the favorite in North Carolina in 2026. They hit the jackpot with Cooper, a popular former governor and seasoned campaigner who knows how to run in the state. He drew the perfect foil in Michael Whatley, a Trump toady with little name recognition and less charisma.
Democrats also got a political environment tailor-made for the opposition party. Trump has been a disaster as president. He tanked a quickly recovering economy, got us into a war with no end in sight, allowed (encouraged?) rampant corruption, and has made his presidency about himself instead of the people he serves. Gas and diesel prices skyrocketing in the final weeks of the election are the icing on the cake.
Even though Cooper is the favorite right now, Republicans will probably continue to spend in North Carolina. Nationally, they have a huge financial advantage, even if ads can’t compete with gas prices. They want to keep Democrats spending here instead of in some other state. Eventually, though, they will probably drop Whatley unless something changes dramatically.
In the end, Cooper will likely win, unless some sort of monumental event occurs in the next few weeks. Polls show him up by double digits, but that won’t be the final margin. Most of those undecided voters are disgruntled Republicans who will either come home or stay home. Cooper will garner slightly more than 50%, and Whatley will probably land somewhere between 45 and 48 percent, with the difference going to third-party candidates.
Even with an advantage, Democrats here will run hard till the end. They understand the stakes—and the possibilities. A strong top of the ticket can bring riches down-ballot. Supreme Court candidate Anita Earls, arguably the most important race on the ballot, has a better chance of winning if Cooper performs well. His coattails could also help break Republicans’ veto-proof legislative majorities and, possibly, give Democrats control of the state House.
This election cycle was always going to be good for Democrats. The reason Michael Whatley is in the race is that Thom Tillis is so unpopular with Republicans that he couldn’t win a primary. The open-seat dynamic in a state like North Carolina would favor almost any competent Democrat. Having Roy Cooper running just added to the advantage. North Carolina was never reliably Republican.
Lets not take anything for granted. The race is not over until the votes are counted. I would hate to wake up the morning after the election and see that any Democrat has lost because we stopped working. Now is our chance to vote these corrupt Republicans out of office.
It’s not really difficult to see how the national media would arrive at that conclusion, though. Burr became a fixture (somehow), and since 2014 when Tillis lucked out the first time, NC has had both seats held by Republicans. Plus, you can count the number of Democratic presidential candidates that have carried the state in my lifetime on half a hand. Edward R. Murrow might’ve realized that the state isn’t “reliably Republican” but the national press doesn’t pay close enough attention to details to realize it.
I don’t have a lot of faith in polls anymore, but when the polling is accompanied by money drying up, I give them a little more credibility. ned for not the first time this week, The Downballot (which I highly recommend) has shown a GOP aligned bankrolled pulling $6.5 million out of NC. Word is the money is departing GA as well, for the same reason.
https://thedownballot.substack.com/p/morning-digest-new-moves-show-house
He also cites a Politico article as reporting:
“There is still time, but even with at least $100 million, [Whatley] would need a campaign team capable of turning that money into actual points,” an unidentified GOP operative in the state told Politico earlier this month.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/12/gop-anxiety-grows-north-carolina-senate-race-01073311
There is still a TON of GOP money afloat in the state, but the Politico article itself quotes another Republican operative as saying that Trump’s first visit to the state would help stop the bleeding. Which it does not appear to have done, based on everything I’ve read since then. And JD’s follow on performance is reported to have drawn around 300 people into a 3000-seat auditorium, and about half of them were struggling to stay awake and off their phones. (I doubt that anyone finds this surprising or difficult to believe.)
With Cooper at the top of the ticket, and candidates in every House and legislative district to ride those coattails, in a year where the federal GOP trifecta is a complete train wreck, the landscape looks quite favorable indeed.