Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley is officially in the race for Senate — and he already has the full backing of Republicans in Washington.
At an event on Thursday in Gastonia, North Carolina, Whatley announced he was running and poured on the praise for President Donald Trump, saying that without what Trump had done over the last 10 years, “we would not be sitting here today.”
“Six months in, it’s pretty clear to say ‘America is back,’” Whatley said, adding that he already has “the complete and total endorsement of President Trump.”
As the GOP tries to fend off Democrats in North Carolina from flipping one of their top pickup opportunities, Republicans are quickly coalescing behind Whatley.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee and its chair, Sen. Tim Scott, are expressing confidence that Whatley can beat former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
In a memo compiled by the NRSC and obtained by NOTUS, the committee laid out why it believes this seat is firmly in Republican hands.
“Democrats will continue to treat it like a battleground, but President Trump’s dominance across three election cycles, voter registration trends, and overwhelming support for conservative priorities all point in one direction: continued GOP dominance in North Carolina’s federal elections and a Senator Michael Whatley,” the memo reads.
The memo points to how Trump won the state three times and how he “improved his vote share in 83 out of 100 counties and made significant gains in rural and working-class communities across the state.”
“Since 2008, the last time Democrats won a Senate seat in North Carolina, their voter registration advantage has collapsed, with a more than 850,000-voter shift toward Republicans,” the memo says. “Nearly 10% of that occurred since President Trump’s re-election in November 2024, narrowing the Democrat advantage to just 18,019 today and positioning Republicans to take the lead for the first time in North Carolina’s history before voting begins next fall.”
Scott is also working to ensure that the entire Senate Republican Conference gets behind Whatley. According to a source familiar with his comments, Scott told his Republican colleagues in the Senate on Tuesday that he would be endorsing Whatley.
Republicans have expressed confidence that Whatley’s close affiliation with Trump will help him turn out the president’s supporters during next year’s midterm election, which the party has traditionally struggled to do when Trump isn’t on the ballot. But Whatley’s long tenure as a partisan political operative might also become a challenge with swing voters, especially against an opponent in Cooper who has a track record of winning moderate voters in his two gubernatorial victories.
The former governor, who has held statewide office in North Carolina for most of this century, is viewed as the best recruit for Senate Democrats at this point in the election cycle.
In a statement, a Cooper campaign official emphasized Whatley’s professional history and support for a Republican-backed spending-and-tax-cut legislation that tightened access to Medicaid.
“Michael Whatley is a D.C. insider and big oil lobbyist who supports policies that are ripping health care away from North Carolinians and raising costs for middle class families,” said Jeff Allen, Cooper’s campaign manager. “North Carolinians don’t need a lobbyist as their senator, and voters will have a clear choice between Whatley’s long career as a Beltway insider against Roy Cooper’s record of putting partisanship aside to get results for North Carolina.”
Lauren French, the spokesperson for the Democratic Senate Majority PAC, had a much simpler statement on Whatley’s announcement.
“Welcome to the race. You’re going to lose,” she said in the statement.
This election is likely to draw hundreds of millions of dollars in spending from both parties. Cooper raised $3.4 million in the first 24 hours of his candidacy, his campaign said.
With Cooper’s fundraising operation in mind, Scott is already urging his colleagues to get behind Whatley not just with their endorsements, but with their dollars as well.
The source familiar with Scott’s remarks on Tuesday said the NRSC chair asked his fellow Republican senators to make a maximum contribution to Whatley’s campaign directly and to join the host committee for an NRSC-hosted fundraiser for Whatley set to happen in September.
On Wednesday, before Whatley’s announcement, the NRSC actually joined Whatley’s joint fundraising account and cut a maximum check of $62,000 directly to the RNC chair’s campaign. And on Thursday, NRSC operatives pressed conference staff and consultants to have their clients sign and send fundraising copy on behalf of Whatley, the source said.
While Democrats are hopeful they can flip North Carolina, particularly after Sen. Thom Tillis announced he wouldn’t seek reelection, Republicans are correct that Democrats have struggled in the state’s recent Senate races. Despite recruiting highly touted candidates like former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley in 2022 and former North Carolina State Sen. Cal Cunningham in 2020, Democrats haven’t won a Senate race since 2008, when Kay Hagan beat Republican Elizabeth Dole by almost 8 percentage points.
Republicans are expecting this race to mimic recent campaigns in the state. The NRSC memo cites polling from July 10 to July 14 — before Whatley or Cooper had announced their runs — that found “in a matchup between Roy Cooper and a generic pro-Trump Republican, they are tied 48% to 48%.”
“Voters trust Republicans over Democrats on the economy by nearly 10%,” the memo says.
“The numbers don’t lie: North Carolina is a red state when it comes to the U.S. Senate. With Michael Whatley — a proven fundraiser and standard-bearer for President Trump’s message — competing against Roy Cooper’s record as a far-left career politician, Republicans will hold North Carolina in 2026 and beyond,” the memo concludes.
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This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and The Assembly.