Democrat Roy Cooper has won North Carolina's open U.S. Senate seat, NPR reported, citing a race call by The Associated Press. The win gives Democrats a key pickup in their effort to win the Senate majority.
Cooper, the state's former two-term governor, becomes the first Democrat elected to the Senate from North Carolina since 2008. He defeated Republican Michael Whatley, a former chair of the Republican National Committee. President Donald Trump picked Whatley to run for the seat after GOP Sen. Thom Tillis chose not to seek reelection.
Tillis made that decision in 2025 after Trump threatened him with a primary challenge for not supporting the president's tax and spending bill. Instead of campaigning for Whatley, Tillis has been promoting a new book that criticizes fellow Republicans.
Cooper ran on affordability, billing each campaign stop as part of a "Make Stuff Cost Less" tour. Whatley focused on crime and immigration and attacked Cooper over a COVID-era legal settlement that released some inmates to ease prison crowding. But polls showed the economy, not crime, was the top worry for North Carolina voters.
Cooper and national Democratic groups spent far more than Whatley and the Republicans. A few weeks before the election, national GOP groups pulled their TV ads out of North Carolina and moved the money to other states, including Kansas. Whatley, in his first run for office, never led in the polls.
Republican strategist Patrick Sebastian, who did not work for the campaign, said Whatley should have talked more about the economy. He said voters who "can only get 80% of what they used to buy" at the grocery store are hard to reach otherwise.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance held several rallies in the state late in the race. Sebastian said they probably helped Republican turnout but were not enough.
Sources: NPR, The Associated Press