After longtime North Carolinian politician Thom Tillis announced that he would be retiring and not seek reelection to a third term as U.S. Senator on June 29, the race for the open seat has attracted significant interest from both parties. The 2026 midterm race is headlined by former Democratic governor Roy Cooper and chair of the Republican National Committee Michael Whatley.
Tillis’ retirement came after President Trump publicly criticized him for voting against the “One Big, Beautiful Bill”. The open seat gives the Democrats the opportunity to flip a key seat.
Western Carolina University political science professor Christopher Cooper said this gives the Democrats a legitimate shot to flip one of the only flippable seats in the U.S. Senate in his opinion. Christopher believes that Cooper is the best candidate the Democrats could have put out.
“He’s never lost an election in the state of North Carolina. He's got high approval ratings. He isn't currently employed. He doesn't seem to have a lot of big negatives,” Christopher said. “If there was a big skeleton in his closet, I think we would know it by now. So Cooper is pretty clearly the Democrats’ best hope.”
Cooper is a popular politician in North Carolina, having served as a state senator, attorney general and governor. In his three decades of North Carolina politics, he has never lost an election. In his campaign announcement, he emphasized the importance of running at this particular time.
“Right now, our country's facing a moment as fragile as any I can remember," Cooper said in his announcement. "And the decisions we make in the next election will determine if we even have a middle class in America anymore. I've never really wanted to go to Washington. I've just wanted to serve the people of North Carolina all my life. But these are not ordinary times.”
On the Republican side, Don Brown and Andy Nilsson have already announced their campaigns, but RNC chair Michael Whatley is the most high-profile Republican candidate running. Whatley announced his campaign on July 31 after Wilmington native Lara Trump, President Trump’s daughter-in-law, passed on the opportunity to run.
Whatley — who led the North Carolina Republican Party for almost five years — has never been elected to a government office. Christopher said that Whatley’s inexperience at running a high-profile campaign could come into play.
“Michael Whatley is certainly well-networked, a good fundraiser, has a lot of the boxes checked, but he's never run a high profile campaign like that,” Christopher said. “I think there's reason to just acknowledge the reality that we just don't know what a Michael Whatley candidacy looks like. He's spent a career supporting others.”
Whatley has already received endorsements from President Trump and U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune. In his campaign announcement at an old textile mill near Charlotte, Whatley promised to be an ally for Trump.
“I am proud to stand with him and fight every single day for every family in every community,” Whatley said. “President Trump deserves an ally and North Carolina deserves a strong conservative voice in the Senate. I will be that voice.”
The first public poll of the election, which was published on Aug. 1, has Roy Cooper leading by six points.
After a gubernatorial race in 2024 that garnered significant national attention due to a number of factors including Republican Mark Robinson’s controversial remarks, Christopher said the race for this seat will also generate a lot of national attention to the North Carolina midterms.
“This uncertainty means that we now are going to have potentially interesting primaries and an interesting general election, and it's going to ramp up the external money that comes into the state. The down ballot effects of that is likely to be increased voter turnout,” Christopher said. “We're probably going to see more people engage in this midterm than we have the last few cycles, just because there's gonna be so much money and attention being dumped into the state.
The open seat is not the key for majority GOP control, according to Christopher, but it is vitally important for the party nonetheless. He said it is important for the GOP to show that they can win an open seat even in a year that is projected to favor the Democrats.
“If they are able to hold on to it, it will suggest the South is still, by and large, out of reach for Democrats,” Christopher said. “It will allow the Republicans to continue this narrative that for federal offices, this is a state that's tended to go for Republican candidates.”
For the Democrats, Christopher said flipping the seat won’t necessarily lead to a Democratic majority in the Senate, but will show that they can be competitive in federal elections inside the state.
“This has been the dig on statewide Democrats is that they can win statewide offices, like governor, lieutenant governor, superintendent of public instruction, secretary of state, but they just can't seem to crack the federal nut at the state level since 2008 and so this would show that that's no longer the case.”