Trump’s handpicked RNC chief crushed in North Carolina as Dems flip key Senate seat

Democrat Roy Cooper won North Carolina’s Senate race Tuesday, defeating former Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley, NBC News and Decision Desk HQ projected.

The former governor’s win flips a seat vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who in his final year was increasingly critical of President Donald Trump. North Carolina is a perennial battleground where Republicans had won every presidential and Senate race after 2008, and both parties invested heavily early in the cycle.

The seat was vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who in his final year was increasingly critical of President Donald Trump. North Carolina is a perennial battleground where Republicans had won every presidential and Senate race since 2008, and both parties invested heavily early in the cycle.

Cooper led in polls for most of the fall. By November, he held a double-digit lead in FiftyPlusOne’s polling average, and Republican strategists described Whatley as struggling to gain traction at the top of the ticket.

Spending followed the polls. The GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund pledged $71 million in April to back Whatley but paused its spending in early October after spending more than $30 million, shifting money to races including Kansas.

Trump campaigned for Whatley in Gastonia and Greenville. In Gastonia, he suggested he might withhold remaining Hurricane Helene relief funds if Whatley lost, then said he was joking. In Greenville, he tied Camp Lejeune water contamination payouts for military veterans to Republican wins, saying “if we don’t win, there’s no money.”

Voting took place under new Republican-backed absentee ballot rules, including a requirement to seal an inner envelope, which a federal judge declined to block before the election.

Democrats also wound down spending in the state at this point.

Cooper’s win flipped a Republican-held seat and gave Democrats a key pickup in their effort to take control of the Senate.