Analysts update prediction on NC’s Senate race. Which way does the state lean?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- UVA Center for Politics changed NC’s rating from toss-up to leans Democrat.
- Roy Cooper has had double-digit polling leads over Whatley since last July.
- The Cook Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball now rate the race as leaning Democrat.
Political analysts now say the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina leans Democrat.
But North Carolinians haven’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 2008, when Kay Hagan defeated incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole.
Nearly a decade later, former Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat from Raleigh, is facing off against former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley to succeed Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican, in Congress.
On Thursday, the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics changed its rating of North Carolina from a toss-up to leans Democrat — joining The Cook Political Report, which made that same change in April.
“Cooper’s team is probably feeling cautiously optimistic, and I think this reinforces that,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, who has no relation to the Senate candidate. “I think Whatley’s camp is clearly going to argue that this is incorrect and anything can happen.”
Cooper’s campaign showed that cautious optimism in a written statement to McClatchy about the change.
“We know DC Republicans will literally spend hundreds of millions and do whatever it takes to prop up DC insider Michael Whatley, the Big Oil and Utilities lobbyist,” said Jeff Allen, Cooper’s campaign manager. “This race will be very close, which is why we are building a campaign to earn every vote and make sure North Carolinians know that Roy Cooper will fight for them in the Senate.”
Whatley’s team responded with a statement of confidence.
“Every cycle dating back for more than a decade, national ‘experts’ and national journalists try to prop up Democrat Senators in NC, and every year those Democrats lose on Election Day,” said DJ Griffin, Whatley’s campaign spokesman. “2026 is no different.”
Roy Cooper has enjoyed double-digit leads in polling over Whatley since the pair entered the race last July. North Carolina voters continue to express that they’re unsure about who Whatley is. The former governor has held political office since the mid-1980s and was on television almost daily during the COVID-19 pandemic for health updates.
The election isn’t over
Chris Cooper said the analyses reinforces what has been seen in the polls and data and felt on the ground, which is that “the election is far from over.”
He added that Whatley could still win, though the race is leaning Democrat.
“I think that is a fair characterization, and now that Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball — arguably the two most prominent election forecasters — are saying the same thing. It just reinforces it,” Chris Cooper said. “I also think both of these groups tend to be fairly conservative.”
Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman authored Crystal Ball’s explanation for the change.
“We are somewhat underwhelmed with ... Whatley’s efforts as the GOP nominee,” Kondik and Coleman wrote. “With Trump’s standing in the state double-digits underwater in multiple polls, we wonder if Whatley has tied himself too closely to the president.”
Whatley has been in Trump’s orbit for more than a decade, having first served on his 2016 transition team, then as the NCGOP chairman and successfully helping Trump win the state. In 2024, he was promoted to lead RNC to help with Trump’s campaign and stayed in that position until Trump tapped Whatley to replace Tillis on the ballot.
But those leadership roles haven’t given him name recognition outside of involved Republicans.
“Whatley is simply less familiar to voters, so it’s easy to see conservatives ‘coming home’ to some degree,” Kondik and Coleman wrote.
But they offered this to both candidates: “While Cooper, one of the strongest Democratic fundraisers on the Senate map, has handily outraised Whatley on a candidate-to-candidate basis, it is possible that conservative outside groups could help close the gap,” they wrote.
“... This may end up as a razor-thin race by Election Day. But it also doesn’t have to become that, and Cooper may just ride out the race and win by a clearer margin.”
