Republicans already seem to be surrendering North Carolina’s US Senate race

This column first appeared in The News and Observer, July 31, 2025

Former Gov. Roy Cooper is running for U.S. Senate. That’s welcome news for North Carolina‘s Democrats, who haven’t won a Senate seat since 2008 — but less welcome news for his likely Republican opponent.

 Michael Whatley, chair of the Republican National Committee, has already won President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

“Mike would make an unbelievable Senator from North Carolina,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I need him in Washington.”

A Cooper-Whatley contest is expected to draw national attention and set spending records for a North Carolina Senate race. Those things may be true, but it’s also true that Whatley is unlikely to defeat Cooper, a popular two-term governor and four-term state attorney general. That Trump has turned to Whatley seems a surrender, a sign that the Republican Party – or rather Trump’s MAGA version of it – is running out of energy, issues and formidable candidates.

Whatley, a former state GOP chair, knows North Carolina and the inner workings of politics, particularly the sharp-edged tactics that rouse the MAGA base. But he’s never run for public office, is unknown outside Republican inner circles, and has the baggage that comes with backing Trump’s false claims, including The Big Lie that the 2020 election involved “massive fraud.”

Trump could have pressed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump — thought to be an early contender — to run. A North Carolina native and N.C. State graduate, she would have brought her name and media appeal to the race. She likely couldn’t beat Cooper, either, but she would present a better chance for an upset.

 Or Republicans could have turned to a fresh face, such as Rep. Pat Harrigan, a West Point graduate and former U.S. Army Green Beret who served in Afghanistan. Harrigan was said to be interested in the Senate race, but he has announced that he will seek reelection to a second term in the House.

Or Republicans could have gone with one of their U.S. House members or one of their better known state officeholders. Cooper would be favored over all of them as well, but any one of them would have been a more promising challenger than the national party chairman.

Republicans Andy Nilsson, a candidate for lieutenant governor in 2000, and Don Brown, a former 2024 primary candidate in the 8th Congressional District, are also seeking their party’s nomination for the Senate seat.

Trump has driven his party to regularly back candidates around the nation who are unlikely to win a general election but have won his personal approval. Sometimes it works. In North Carolina, Sen. Ted Budd is in office almost solely because of Trump’s endorsement. But Trump also backed former Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s disastrous run for governor.

Trump is still setting the Republican table in North Carolina, but his influence will hurt more than help in 2026. Republican candidates will have to defend his unpopular “One Big, Beautiful Bill” and his cuts in research grants that hurt the Research Triangle economy. And who knows what the Epstein imbroglio will do to his ability to turn out MAGA voters.

Republicans hope that a barrage of negative ads will dent Cooper’s appeal and make up for Whatley’s lack of it. Such ads can define a new or divisive candidate, but Cooper is well known and broadly popular. Favorable opinions of him are baked in.

The Senate race didn’t have to be as uphill for Republicans as this one looks. If the president hadn’t driven Sen. Thom Tillis out of the contest with a threat to back a primary opponent against him, Republicans would have a two-term senator on the ballot. And if Trump hadn’t backed funding cuts that could undo Cooper’s top accomplishment as governor – the expansion of Medicaid coverage to more than 600,000 North Carolinians – Cooper may not have been as motivated to seek a Senate seat.

Instead, Trump has drawn Cooper in and put Whatley up, a lopsided combination that will likely cost Republicans a Senate seat and could put their Senate majority at risk.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@newsobserver.com