Elon poll: Cooper has an 11 point lead over Whatley

As North Carolina gears up for the 2026 midterm elections in November, a new Elon University Poll finds former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper has an 11% lead over Republican Michael Whatley in the state’s U.S. Senate race. Among likely voters (those who said it is “absolutely certain” they will vote), Cooper was favored by 53%, with Whatley favored by 42%. Five percent were undecided or planned to vote for someone else.

Among all those who said they were registered to vote, Cooper is favored by 51% and Whatley is favored by 35%, with 11 percent saying they were undecided or planned to vote for someone else and 3% saying they do not plan to vote.

The survey of 800 North Carolina adults was conducted from July 23-31, 2026, and has a margin of error for likely voters of 5.6%. Ninety-eight percent of poll respondents said they are registered to vote in the state. This is the first Elon University Poll to ask voters who they plan to vote for in this year’s U.S. Senate race. A previous Elon poll in March

2026 found that Cooper had much stronger familiarity and favorability ratings, compared with Whatley, who has never run for office in the state.

In this new poll, 84% of registered voters said they had heard “a great deal” (55%) or “some” (29%) about Cooper, who was North Carolina governor from 2017 to 2025 and previously served 16 years as the state’s attorney general. In comparison, 53% said they had heard “a great deal” (17%) or “some” (36%) about Whatley, the former chair of the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party. Twenty percent said they had heard nothing at all about Whatley compared with only 5% who had heard nothing at all about Cooper.

“The North Carolina U.S. Senate race has been shaped from the beginning as a contest between a very well-known Democrat and a relatively unknown Republican,” said Jason Husser, director of the Elon University Poll. “While Roy Cooper continues to be much more familiar to voters than Michael Whatley, Whatley’s familiarity among voters has increased meaningfully between March and July. Moreover, among the roughly half of voters who have heard a great deal or some about Whatley, the race becomes very close. This leads me to expect some tightening in polls over the next two months,” Husser said.

Fifty-three percent of registered voters expressed favorable views of Cooper, compared with 36% who had favorable opinions of Whatley.

Cooper is favored by 93% of Democrats. Whatley is preferred by 84% of Republicans. Independents split 49% for Cooper and 22% for Whatley. Third party candidates Shannon Bray (Libertarian) and Michael Dublin (Green) had 1% and 2% support overall, respectively.

Strong interest in the election

Sixty-three percent of registered voters said it is “absolutely certain” they will vote in November and another 20% said it is “very likely” they will cast a ballot.

Despite questions being raised about election integrity and potential foreign interference in U.S. elections, 63% of registered voters said they were “very confident” (27%) or “somewhat confident” (36%) that the election process overall will be fair. Twenty-nine percent said they had little or no confidence in there being a fair election process.