Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, held a lead over Republican Michael Whatley in a new poll of North Carolina’s Senate race, one of the key states that could determine which party controls the chamber after the 2026 midterm elections.
North Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator or voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008 but has remained close in recent elections. The Tar Heel State backed President Donald Trump by about 3 points in 2024 and is seen as a battleground roughly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. The state has elected a number of Democrats, including Cooper, to the governor's mansion.
The Public Policy Polling survey showed Cooper with a 4-point lead over Whatley with just under four months until Election Day.
Cooper’s campaign manager Jeff Allen responded to the poll in a statement to Newsweek.
“Roy Cooper has spent his career putting North Carolinians first, while Washington DC insider Michael Whatley spent his delivering for billionaires and special interests at the expense of the middle class,” Allen wrote. “A Democrat has not won statewide federal office in North Carolina in nearly two decades and we know this race will be very close, which is why we’re building a campaign to earn every vote and make sure North Carolinians know that Roy Cooper will fight for them in the Senate."
D.J. Griffin, a spokesperson for Whatley, told Newsweek that Democrats are “using the same old playbook they’ve used since 2014—lead in July and lose in November.”
“Career politician Roy Cooper, 42 years into his political career, started with universal name ID and has now spent millions on revisionist history biographical ads but is still stuck where he started at 48 percent. That’s because of the sorry soft-on-crime, and raising your taxes record of Governor Cooper,” Griffin said.
Roy Cooper Leads New North Carolina Poll
Two-term Republican Senator Thom Tillis announced he was retiring at the end of his term, leaving vacant—and vulnerable—a battleground seat. Democrats believe Cooper, a two-term governor, is a strong candidate who can flip the seat in a favorable national environment, fueled by Trump’s declining national approval rating. Republicans, however, note that most polling still shows Cooper below 50 percent support and that the state has favored their candidates in recent federal elections.
Democrats view North Carolina as perhaps their best opportunity to flip a seat in the midterms, and a must-win for their chances of flipping control of Congress’ upper chamber. It’s the only GOP-held seat up for grabs in a single-digit Trump state, along with a GOP-held seat in Maine, which Trump lost by 7 points, being the party’s other top target.
The poll found Cooper with support from 48 percent of respondents, while 44 percent said they would back Whatley in November. The polling memo stated that while Cooper continues to have a lead, Whatley “does have a path to victory.”
“Cooper’s lead is driven in part by a significant name recognition advantage. 92% of voters are familiar with him, compared to 69% who are familiar with Whatley,” the polling memo reads. “Because of that dynamic Democrats are almost completely lined up behind Cooper, while a lot of Republican voters remain undecided.”
It surveyed 759 North Carolina voters July 10-July and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
Christopher Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University, told Newsweek that part of the former governor’s lead is a result of Whatley having a “name recognition problem that he has been unable to solve.”
“It’s not so much that people are disliking Michael Whatley,” he said. “It’s that they don’t know who Michael Whatley is.”
Cooper, the former governor, has “almost universal name recognition” in the state in addition to benefiting from the national environment, but Whatley still has a path to victory, he said.
“He's clearly trying to hit Roy Cooper on some bread-and-butter issues for the Republicans, like crime and safety," he said. "If that is able to resonate, if the national tides turn a little bit away from the Democratic Party and if he can solve the name recognition problem—you sort of have to have all three of those conditions met for a Michael Whatley victory.”
Whatley needs a “shift in the national political environment to shift back towards Republicans,” Steven Greene, professor of political science at North Carolina State University, told Newsweek, noting that most voters are still not paying close attention to the Senate race.
“If Trump's approval and the generic Congressional ballot are in November, where they are now, it seems very unlikely that Whatley is able to win this race,” he said.
What Do Other Polls Show About North Carolina Senate Race?
Other recent polling has shown Cooper, who benefits from high name recognition, with a lead.
A New York Times and Siena poll, which surveyed 601 likely voters June 15-27 showed Cooper with a 7-point lead and 50 percent support to Whatley’s 43 percent.
A poll from Catawba College released in June found Cooper with a 14-point lead, supported by 48 percent of respondents, to Whatley’s 34 percent. Fifteen percent said they remained undecided. That’s the same margin Cooper led in the pollster’s survey from March. The poll surveyed 1,000 North Carolina voters June 1-10 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.83 percentage points.
Another recent Harper Polling/Carolina Journal poll showed Cooper leading Whatley by more than 11 points, with 49.8 percent of respondents saying they would support him in November. Whatley received 38.7 percent of the vote. The poll surveyed 600 likely voters May 10-11, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Earlier, a High Point University/YouGov poll released last month showed Cooper up 8 points with likely voters. Fifty percent of respondents said they would support him, while 42 percent said they intend to vote for Whatley. It surveyed 703 people March 26-April 6, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
Forecasters like the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball classify the race as Lean Democratic.
What Do Prediction Markets Show?
Prediction markets also favor Cooper—heavily. He held an 87 percent chance of victory on both Kalshi and Polymarket as of Tuesday morning.
Prediction markets allow traders to buy and sell contracts tied to political outcomes and current events, aggregating real‑money wagers into probability estimates. Prices fluctuate as traders react to polling, fundraising, candidate developments and broader political trends. They measure trader sentiment at a given moment but do not always accurately predict the future.
North Carolina Is Elusive Battleground for Democrats
In North Carolina, Democrats have performed well in recent gubernatorial elections in the state but have consistently fallen short in federal elections.
The late Senator Kay Hagan was the last to win a Senate race in 2008, when former President Barack Obama also won the state.
In 2022, Democrat Cheri Beasley lost to Republican Ted Budd, then a member of the House, by about 3 points. Tillis defeated Democrat Cal Cunningham by less than 2 points in 2020. In 2016, former GOP Senator Richard Burr defeated Democrat Deborah Ross, now a member of Congress, by nearly 6 points.
At the same time, Democrats have held a grip on the governor's mansion. Democrat Josh Stein, who succeeded Cooper, won November's race by nearly 15 points after Republican Mark Robinson faced a series of scandals on the campaign trail.
Over the past decade, Democrats have gained ground in the suburbs around Charlotte and Raleigh but have struggled in more rural parts of the state, which were once more competitive when Obama won the state in 2008.
Trump also carried the state in each of his three White House runs, albeit by narrow margins—about 3.6 points in 2016, 1.3 points in 2020 and 3.2 points in 2024.
Christopher Cooper, the political scientist, said North Carolina is a state that is “pretty sensitive” to national tides and that part of the reason Democrats have struggled in Senate races is because seats have been up in good years for Republicans.
“It’s long had this split ticket mentality sort of sewn into its DNA,” he said.
Candidate quality is also important, and Cooper is a former governor and multi-term attorney general.
As of July 11, there were 2,315,963 registered Democrats in North Carolina, and 2,326,752 registered Republicans. However, 3,108,871 North Carolina voters were registered as unaffiliated, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
How Popular Is Donald Trump in North Carolina?
Trump’s approval rating is likely to be a major factor in the 2026 midterm elections. Historically, the party in the White House loses seats in the midterms, which are often viewed as a referendum on the sitting president. The president’s national approval rating has declined since his return to the Oval Office amid concerns about the cost of living and inflation.
Trump could be a “net drag” on Republican candidates in North Carolina if his approval numbers do not improve by November, Steven Greene, professor of political science, said.
“Trump is very unpopular right now,” he said. “Somewhat less so in NC, as NC is somewhat to the right of the nation as a whole, but that still puts him in the low 40's of approval.
The new poll from Public Policy Polling showed that 42 percent of North Carolina respondents viewed Trump favorably, while 52 percent viewed him unfavorably.
In Civiqs’ Trump approval tracking poll, Trump’s approval rating stood at 40 percent, while his disapproval stood at 55 percent. It has tracked 115,982 responses nationwide since Trump’s return to office.
Earlier, the Times poll showed that 55 percent of North Carolina voters disapprove of Trump, while 41 percent approve.
Democrats’ Chances of Flipping Senate
Democrats are facing high stakes in North Carolina. If they fail to flip the vulnerable state, their path to Senate control would significantly narrow.
Republicans hold a 52-47 majority, with a vacancy in South Carolina after Senator Lindsey Graham died over the weekend. This means Democrats must flip four seats to regain control of the upper chamber. Democrats are defending two seats in Trump-won states, Georgia and Michigan, and aiming to flip North Carolina and Maine as top targets.
But even if they win all four of those critical races, Republicans would still have a 51-seat majority. That means Democrats must try to flip seats in states where Trump won by double digits. They view states like Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas as their best opportunities. Those states are more conservative, but polls have suggested close races.
As of Monday morning, Republicans had a 56 percent chance of retaining control of the Senate on Kalshi and a 55 percent chance on Polymarket.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Geoffrey Rowland and Dave Siminoff.