U.S. Senate candidates Michael Whatley and Roy Cooper addressed crowds Friday in central North Carolina speeches, and the roughly 100 supporters who showed up for each candidate could be forgiven for thinking they’d heard it all before.
Cooper, the Democratic nominee, continued the same theme that has come to define his campaign: Things cost too much, and Republican politicians in Washington are to blame for policies that have directly caused a rise in inflation, alleging that the GOP favors the ultra-wealthy.
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“We’re the richest country in the world,” Cooper told supporters at Shiloh Baptist Church in Henderson. “Everybody ought to have access to quality, affordable healthcare. … I’m ready to take on insurance companies that are blocking payments for people that ought to be made. I’m ready to take on utility companies. All of them are making lots of profits, yet people are suffering and paying more.”
Whatley, the Republican nominee, likewise stuck to the same theme he’s been talking about for months: Cooper had bad public safety policies during his two terms as governor, and Democratic politicians across the board are to blame for policies that he alleges are too soft on crime. Whatley criticized Cooper’s support of policing reforms in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement.
“I don't think we need to reimagine law enforcement,” Whatley said. “I think we need to enforce the law. … I am going to be there to back the blue. I am going to support our troopers. I'm going to support our law enforcement communities all across the state.”
Political analysts who focus on campaigns and messaging said both candidates’ strategies fit the playbook they’re trying to run.
Michael Bitzer is a political scientist at Catawba College where he leads the college’s public polling efforts and directs the Center for North Carolina Politics and Public Service. So far, he said, polls show Whatley has a lot of work ahead to convince more Republicans to come out and vote for him.
Recent polling shows Cooper with a wide lead. The former two-term governor has an 11-point lead over Whatley among likely voters in the race for the seat being vacated by Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, according to an Elon University poll released Wednesday.
Among likely voters, 53% favored Cooper, while 42% favored Whatley. Five percent were undecided or planned to vote for someone else. The Libertarian and Green parties have also nominated candidates.
“The polling that I've seen, and that we have done with our polls, is that independents are breaking heavily to Cooper,” Bitzer said. “So Whatley has to get his base in alignment and try and build towards that 50%, and potentially pull from Cooper. I haven't seen that play itself out yet.”
Midterm elections like this year’s tend to go against the party that controls the White House. Bitzer said Whatley needs to find some way to fire up the GOP side to counter that, especially since Trump’s approval ratings are negative.
“Using the crime aspect, along with hardcore social issues like transgender athletes and that kind of issue, you're playing to a base,” Bitzer said of Whatley’s messaging strategy. “But that base may respond. The people in the middle, the swing voters, they're going to be more at issue with affordability.”
Chris Cooper, a Western Carolina University political scientist, said inflation remains up despite Republican President Trump making that a key message in his own 2024 campaign — so it makes sense Democrats would make that a key talking point to hit Republicans. It also makes sense that Whatley is hammering his Democratic opponent on public safety, a tried and true message for conservatives, said Cooper, who isn’t related to the candidate.
“People tend to trust the Republicans more on issues of public safety,” he said. “It's an easy sell. …And then the Democratic Party is obviously trying to own this issue of affordability right now, with President Trump at the helm.”
He noted that there are very few true swing voters, and that candidates are more focused on convincing people on their side to actually go vote rather than staying home.
“Campaigns aren't about convincing people to come over to your side,” he said. “They're about reminding people that your candidate is closer to the people than the other candidate.”
More on the issues
Whatley’s main line of attack against Roy Cooper is the former governor’s decision in 2021 to settle a lawsuit that led to the release of several thousand prisoners over Covid-19 concerns.
At the time, Whatley had a different stance: He criticized Cooper during the pandemic for not releasing prisoners since overcrowded prisons also exposed staff to the virus.
More recently Whatley has called that decision a mistake, accusing Cooper of releasing too many criminals with violent records as part of the settlement with the NAACP and others to end their lawsuit, which sought more expansive prison releases. Cooper had fought the lawsuit, which was brought by advocates of prisoners, until a Wake County judge indicated he’d rule in favor of the prisoner advocates.
Whatley has repeatedly made the disproven accusation that Cooper granted an early prison release to DeCarlos Brown Jr., the man accused of murdering Charlotte woman Iryna Zarutska on a train last year. Whatley repeated the claim again Friday, telling supporters that “her blood is on Roy Cooper’s hands.” PolitiFact North Carolina has rated similar claims by Whatley as false.
When the Cooper administration agreed to the prison releases, it counted people who had already been released — a strategy that allowed Cooper and his top prison officials to release fewer prisoners than they had agreed to. Brown was one of those people who was already out of prison when the settlement was signed but got counted toward the settlement anyway to inflate the numbers.
Asked about Whatley’s attacks on his public safety record, Cooper told reporters Friday that he stands by his record.
“I'm the only one in this race who's actually prosecuted violent criminals and worked to keep them behind bars,” Cooper said. “As governor, I signed tougher bail laws for people, tougher gang laws, laws that help protect law enforcement officers. So, I know that public safety is a priority. I have lived that. And I'm going to continue to work to make sure our communities are safe when I go to the United States Senate.”
And just as Whatley attacked Cooper on public safety, Cooper attacked Whatley on the economy.
He pointed to Whatley’s ownership of hundreds of thousands of dollars in Duke Energy stock, saying Whatley profits when people’s electrical bills go up. And he criticized Whatley for supporting Trump’s war against Iran, which has also caused energy prices to rise.
“This war in Iran has no strategy, and we know that it is sending prices soaring at home,” Cooper said.
Whatley didn’t mention anything about the economy, his plans for fighting inflation or similar topics during Friday’s speech, although he criticized Cooper for vetoing tax cuts proposed by Republican state lawmakers and called him “the worst governor in the history of North Carolina.”
Seeking specifics
Throughout the campaign, the candidates have made high-level promises with few concrete specifics about how they’d tackle their signature issues. In speeches and ads, they’ve been more focused on criticizing their opponent than on outlining their own plans.
Cooper has offered details of his proposals, including through his campaign website which outlines 26 different ways he could “make stuff cost less” if elected to the Senate.
Those include stopping Trump’s tariffs on many imported goods, expanding the child care tax credit, requiring more pricing transparency from health care providers and banning companies from using software algorithms to boost prices for rent or groceries.
Cooper’s website doesn’t have the same level of detail on his proposals for public safety, although it does reference his record, particularly from his service as attorney general from 2001 until 2017: “Cooper prosecuted criminals and protected North Carolina families, small businesses, and seniors for four consecutive terms,” Cooper’s website says. “He oversaw a sharp decrease in crime and fought for consumers by putting scammers and predatory lenders out of business.”
Whatley’s campaign website is less detailed than Cooper’s. It lists his top priority as “Enact the Trump agenda in the U.S. Senate” and, on other topics, offers few specifics.
His campaign also didn’t respond to WRAL’s questions Friday about his plans for the economy. He also didn’t respond to a series of questions seeking more specifics about his plans for the economy or public safety.
The economy section of his website focuses on promoting the energy industry. Whatley is a former lobbyist for oil and gas companies. “America’s economic strength depends on reliable, affordable energy and reining in Washington’s reckless spending,” his website states.
The public safety section of his website consists primarily of anti-Cooper complaints, offering few specific proposals beyond a promise to “stand shoulder to shoulder with President Trump to restore law and order” and to repeal unnamed policies supported by Democrats.
