Former Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper is expected to announce his bid for Senate as early as Monday, according to reports from multiple outlets based on conversations with those with knowledge of Cooper’s thinking.
Cooper served two terms as Governor until last year, when term limits kicked in and he was replaced by fellow Democrat Josh Stein, the state’s former Attorney General.
Cooper would run for the seat currently held by Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, who announced last month he would not seek re-election. Tillis’ announcement presents a rare pickup opportunity in the Tar Heel state, where Democrats consistently have fallen just short of capturing a Senate seat despite having success in other statewide elections.
If Cooper enters the race — or when, based on the confidence sources had that he would — his candidacy is expected to make the race one of the most competitive nationwide of the 2026 Midterm cycle as Democrats fight to claw back a majority in Congress’ upper chamber.
Recent polling shows Cooper locked in a tie with a generic Republican on the statewide ballot for Senate, according to Newsweek. The poll put Cooper at 48% support, the same as a generic Republican, with 4% undecided.
That tracks with North Carolina’s voter registration data and historical performance on statewide ballots, where Democrats emerge victorious in statewide races for state seats, but have lost in recent years in presidential and U.S. Senate contests.
North Carolina’s voting population is split at a little less than 31% each for Democrats and Republicans, with Democrats having a statistically insignificant voter registration advantage of about a tenth of a percentage point. Nearly 38% of North Carolina voters are nonpartisan, according to L2 voter data.
It’s worth noting that polling before Tillis bowed out of the race, from late May, also according to Newsweek, showed Cooper with a lead in a matchup against the incumbent, with Cooper at 49% support to just 31% support for Tillis.
While that could be an outlier, it’s a telling piece of the puzzle in the race; incumbents typically enjoy an edge. But it could signal North Carolina voters are turned off by the recent politics of Washington, where President Donald Trump’s control seems almost complete with Republican majorities, even if slight, in both the House and Senate.
Another poll from earlier this year, from Change Research/Carolina Forward, put Cooper in a far tighter race against Tillis, at 46% to 44% with a Cooper advantage.
Jeff Jackson, North Carolina’s current Attorney General, has also considered running as a Democrat, but has said he would support Cooper if Cooper gets in the race, according to WRAL.
Tillis was first elected to the seat in 2014. Last month, he publicly came out against Trump’s massive tax and budget package dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” arguing it was a tax-and-spend measure that included cuts to Medicaid that would be politically unpopular. He warned ahead of voting against the bill that it risked breaking promises to Trump voters and was the “biggest risk” to Trump’s legacy.
While his remarks were supportive of the President, going against a Trump priority all but guaranteed a Primary opponent, a threat that Trump indeed made.
“I told the president in another text: ‘Now’s the time to start looking for my replacement because I don’t deal with that kind of bullsh*t,’” Tillis recounted, according to CNN.
Republican National Committee Chair and former North Carolina GOP leader Michael Whatley has said he will run for the seat, after Lara Trump, the President’s daughter-in-law and former Co-Chair of the RNC, declined to run, according to The New York Times, who cited two sources with familiarity of the decisions. The GOP field had been on hold as Lara Trump considered the bid for herself.
On the Democratic side, former U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel is already in the race. He has not said whether he would step aside in favor of a Cooper candidacy, though he also did not rule it out, according to POLITICO.
