Michael Whatley’s Hurricanes blunder hurts a campaign with little room for error | Opinion
U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley and his campaign made a misstep this week when trying to cheer on the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup Final.
On Tuesday, Whatley’s campaign posted two AI-generated graphics on social media in support of the Hurricanes. The problem was, none of the players in the graphics were actually Hurricanes players. They wore the jerseys, and some had the numbers of real Hurricanes players, but they looked nothing like those players at all.
That unfortunate use of AI might have died down, but the story only grew bigger the next day when reporters asked Whatley about the graphic at a campaign event.
The Assembly’s Bryan Anderson asked Whatley to name his three favorite Hurricanes players. Whatley replied, “You know, I think we like them all.”
When asked again, Whatley said, “Look, I think that that’s a team that’s loaded. They’re playing offense really well.”
Eventually, he walked away. But two minutes later, after some intervention from North Carolina Republican Party spokesman Matt Mercer, Whatley came back with a name: Jaccob Slavin. (Just don’t ask him to spell it.)
Some people have questioned why this is even newsworthy in the first place. Obviously, hockey expertise is not a requirement for becoming a U.S. senator. But there is something to be said about authenticity and relatability, and from an image perspective, that’s why this matters.
Of course, Whatley is hardly the first U.S. Senate candidate to have an attempt to seem relatable fail on the campaign trail. In 2020, Cal Cunningham infamously posted a photo of him with a gas grill and called it barbecue. At the time, Whatley himself called Cunningham an “elitist trial lawyer” and said it “demonstrates that he is out of touch with North Carolina voters who actually know what North Carolina BBQ is.” In 2022, Senate hopeful Mark Walker posted a photo of a dreadful Waffle House order. While those posts weren’t the reason that Cunningham and Walker lost their races, they did illustrate a larger issue, which was that neither campaign really resonated with voters.
For Whatley’s campaign, this is an unforced error in a campaign that doesn’t have a whole lot of room for mistakes. Especially when your opponent is one of the most well-liked politicians in the state and a raging Caniac, and especially when your opponent’s chief argument is that you’re an out-of-touch D.C. insider. If polls are to be believed, Whatley has a long way to go if he wants to win this race. Perhaps more significantly, few people seem to know who Michael Whatley is. For some people, this Hurricanes fiasco could have been their first introduction, and it doesn’t exactly make a good impression.
There are so many ways to handle this situation that could have resulted in a different ending. Whatley could have just posted “Go Canes!” and nobody would have thought twice about it. Even an AI-generated graphic wouldn’t have been an issue if someone had checked to make sure it was accurate. His team should have better prepared him for questions about the post and made sure he knew the name of at least ONE Hurricanes player. Or, Whatley could have just admitted that he’s not a big hockey guy, but he’s always happy to see a North Carolina team find success. There’s no shame in that.
But that’s not what happened, which is why we find ourselves here talking about it. Perhaps there’s a lesson here for all politicians: if you post about something, at least make sure you know what you’re talking about. And check your AI graphics before you post them.
Deputy Opinion Editor Paige Masten is covering politics and the 2026 elections for The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer.
