North Carolina Democrats Running Popular Old Guy That People Like? Is That Even Allowed?
We'll take any bits of hope where we can find them!
Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced yesterday he’s running for Senate, immediately becoming the frontrunner for the seat Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is leaving. Cooper, a Democrat, is likely to face Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, who hasn’t announced yet, but it’s one of those extremely open secrets that the AP pretends must be attributed to anonymous insiders.
Donald Trump gave his endorsement to Whatley after his daughter-in-law Lara Trump decided against a carpetbagger bid for the seat herself. (She was born in NC but lives in Florida.) You will be thrilled to know she intends to pursue her “singing” career instead, and released a new single the same day she announced she’s not running. No, I am not paid enough to listen to it, you can’t make me.
Cooper could be key to Democrats retaking the Senate if midterms elections are held in 2026; they would need to pick up four seats, and many of the Republican seats that are up for 2026 are in states Trump won last year. The good news is that Trump has since done a great job of reminding America why it despises him after all, although some people in those states would vote for a literal bag of hammers with an R after its name.
Here’s Cooper’s announcement video, in which he emphasizes that Republicans are no friends of the middle class, focusing in particular on how the incredibly unpopular Big Blowjobs for Billionaires Bill will make America worse.
Cooper draws a clear line here between the Medicaid cuts in the Big Ugly Fucker and his own success as governor, when he worked with Republicans to expand Medicaid “to more than 650,000 working North Carolinians.” And yes, that participial adjective “working” is very much a shot across the bow for the campaign to come, since Republicans keep lying that only lazy layabouts will lose benefits.
It’s a pretty canny ad for a popular Democrat running in a purple state, carefully not naming Trump or even Republicans, but leaving no doubt who he’s talking about. He never calls ‘em fascists, either, instead saying only that “our country is facing a moment as fragile as any I can remember.” This will be a fight between Republicans and ordinary Americans, he says:
“But these are not ordinary times. Politicians in DC are running up our debt, ripping away our health care, disrespecting our veterans, cutting health for the poor, and even putting Medicare and Social Security at risk just to give tax breaks to billionaires. That's wrong, and I've had enough.”
It’s no coincidence that Republicans designed the worst of the Medicaid cutbacks to kick in after the midterms, is it?
Predictably enough, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) tried to smear Cooper as “far left,” because that’s the only card they have to play. With a compliant rightwing press, maybe it’ll help some, but considering that Republicans lost almost across the board in statewide races last year, we don’t see how a rerun of shouting “Biden! Harris! Socialisms!” will go next time around.
Plenty of voters will also still be pissed off about the GOP’s months-long attempt to retroactively change election rules and throw out overseas military votes so that a GOP-backed candidate could steal the state supreme court election he lost fair and square. That failed electoral coup only ended in May when the sore loser finally, finally conceded. The state Supremes still have a 5-2 GOP majority, but Republicans’ attempt to steal the 2024 election should play prominently in the next election.
Still, when all you have is lies, you gotta go with those and hope people will remember what they saw on Fox News, not what actually happened.
“Roy Cooper is a Democrat lapdog who spent his time as Governor sabotaging President Trump, doing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' bidding,” NRSC Communications Director Joanna Rodriguez said partly in a statement. “When Hurricane Helene hit, Cooper's gross mismanagement left over 100 North Carolinians dead and an estimated $53 billion in damage to businesses, homes, and infrastructure.”
That stuff about Helene is demonstrably bullshit; Cooper issued a warning before Helene hit and coordinated the disaster response quickly, getting the state National Guard to work right after the storm. Donald Trump lied outrageously about the disaster response. A March 2025 poll showed North Carolinians have mixed opinions on how FEMA responded (43 percent said the response was poor or very poor, 25 percent called it good or very good, and another 18 percent thought it was adequate).
That poll didn’t specifically discuss Cooper, who in last fall’s election was succeeded by Gov. Josh Stein, even with all the Trumpy bullshit about FEMA, so it remains to be seen if Helene — and lies about it — will play a role in the Senate race. Cooper might be wise to point to all the times Republicans in the state Lege voted for lax building codes that almost certainly added to the death toll from Helene.
The NRSC also took to social media to attack Cooper for vetoing bills banning trans girls from school sports teams and requiring sheriffs to help ICE with mass deportations; both bills ultimately became law when the gerrymandered Republican Legislature overrode Cooper’s vetoes. What we don’t know yet is whether another year of ROP attacks on trans people and immigrants will be the political winner they’re sure it is. The cruelty is the point, but people are already getting sick of it.
Cooper doesn’t need to play defense on those vetoes, anyway: He should spin the Republican gerrymander in the Lege as the evil that it is, an attempt to impose minority rule, and he should remind voters that even though Republicans rigged the state’s electoral maps, Democrats last year came out in great enough numbers to end the GOP’s supermajority.
By the time of the 2026 elections, of course, Crom only knows what Trump and congressional Republicans will have done to fuck over North Carolinians, so it may be far too early to even predict what will be the top issues then.
Probably the fact that Cooper said he’d prayed on the decision, so some idiots on Bluesky are mad now, the end.
[AP / ABC News / Elon University poll (no relation, we hope) / The Hill)
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"Predictably enough, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) tried to smear Cooper as “far left,” because that’s the only card they have to play."
Cooper is about as far left as a Norman Rockwell painting. He represents that kind of upbeat middle-class mainstream Protestant pro-business liberalism that's a stark contrast to the hate-filled, sex obsessed, ready for the apocalypse evangelical brand of the current GOP.
He's been competent and a voice of reason in the state. So, of course, the 30% of NC voters who are registered in the GOP hate his guts.
NOTHING changes if we don't win.