The showdown plays out in the crucial North Carolina Senate race, with former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley winning their primaries. NBC News Projects.
The North Carolina race will be central to this year’s battle for the Senate as Republicans defend their 53-47 majority. It’s a race Democrats must win if they have any hope of getting the four seats they need to take control of the chamber.
Democrats are confident Cooper will be a formidable candidate after winning gubernatorial elections in 2016 and 2020, even as President Donald Trump won the Tar Heel State. Trump also won the state in 2024, by 3 percentage points.
Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, a native of North Carolina, dropped out of running to replace outgoing Republican Sen. Thom Tillis. So Republicans turned to Whatley, who at the time was chairman of the Republican National Committee and had previously led the North Carolina Republican Party.
Trump encouraged Whatley to run and endorsed his campaign when he launched it in late July. And the RNC gave Whatley an early boost by approving the national party to spend resources helping Whatley’s campaign, even though he had not yet won the primary.
Whatley, who linked himself to Trump in the early stages of the race, touted that endorsement in the run-up to Tuesday’s primary, launching a television ad in which Trump said of Whatley that it is “very important for him to win” and that he “represents his values.”
Whatley also launched an ad on streaming services against Cooper ahead of Tuesday’s primary, offering a preview of his case against Cooper in the coming months.
The ad links Cooper to a fatal stabbing last year on a train, where Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, was killed by Decarlos Brown Jr., who had previously served prison time for robbery with a dangerous weapon. A federal grand jury indicted Brown in October.
Whatley’s ad, which features video footage of the stabbing, also features a narrator criticizing Cooper’s support for a “woke cashless bail agenda,” without a source for that claim, and saying the former governor “has blood on his hands.”
“Iryna Zarutska’s murder was an act of despicable evil and it is disturbing that Michael Whatley continues to use footage of her death in his ads against her family’s explicit wishes,” Cooper campaign spokesperson Jordan Monaghan said in a statement to NBC News, referencing a report that Zarutska’s family had asked the public in September to stop sharing the video. “Political candidates should stop lying about this tragedy for political gain and work to keep our communities safe.”
“Roy Cooper is the only candidate who spent his career prosecuting violent criminals and keeping thousands of them behind bars as attorney general, and signing tough crime laws and stricter bail and pretrial release rules as governor,” Monaghan said.
Cooper, the state’s former attorney general before becoming governor, signed a bill in 2023 that changes bail procedures for violent crimes.
Meanwhile, Cooper has been emphasizing affordability during the election campaign and is launching a “Make Stuff Cost Less” tour after the primary.
Cooper has also been building up his campaign coffers. Cooper had raised $21.1 million and had $14.2 million in his bank account as of Feb. 11, while Whatley had raised $6.3 million and had $2.5 million on hand.
