Democratic former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper won the US Senate race over Trump-backed GOP candidate Michael Whatley in a major pickup for Democrats.
Cooper led Whatley, 66.8% to 31.6%, when the Associated Press called the race at 8:24 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Cooper, 69 and a former two-term governor, will succeed GOP Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) in the upper chamber. He broke the GOP winning streak in the Tar Heel State to become the first Democrat elected to the Senate in 18 years and handing the party a necessary pick-up in their quest to take back the upper chamber.
Whatley, 58, previously chaired the Republican National Committee alongside Trump’s daughter-in-law Laura Trump. He benefited from close ties to the president in a state Trump won three times and skated through the GOP primary with Trump’s endorsement.
But Republicans faced national headwinds with voters frustrated by the cost of living, high gas prices and the Iran war. Cooper campaigned on a “Make Stuff Cost Less” platform and pulled away in public polling in the final stretch.
In the final weeks of the contest, Republicans shifted $10 million from North Carolina’s Senate race over to Kansas to help incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), ceasing any further spending by the super PACs that had previously been backing Whatley.
Initially, $71 million had been set aside for the North Carolina GOP nominee — but just $30 million was spent before the change in tactics.
The North Carolina seat became a major target for both parties after Tillis announced he wouldn’t seek another term.
Before Tuesday, Democrats had not won a Senate seat in North Carolina since Kay Hagan’s victory in 2008. She was defeated by Tillis six years later.
Whatley’s campaign had attacked Cooper for soft-on-crime policies, including appointing a onetime gang member to a criminal justice task force and a mass release of prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some 3,500 convicts were released as part of a little-known settlement between Cooper’s administration and civil rights groups in February 2021.
A Post review found more than 600 of those later committed serious felonies like homicides, sex offenses, or other violent crimes. At least 18 of the prisoners were later charged with murder.
Meanwhile, Cooper had lambasted his Republican opponent for appointing a child sex offender to a role within his state’s party.
Cooper has also criticized Whatley for his closeness to Trump, as the 47th president faces historically unpopular approval ratings in surveys.
“This president anointed him to be the candidate. Now Michael Whatley will do and say whatever this president tells him to do and say,” Cooper told supporters.
