North Carolina Senate race emerges as Dems' best chance to flip GOP seat

Geoff Bennett:

Well, the 2026 primary season is officially over. Voters in Delaware cast the final ballots yesterday. And, no surprises, they set up a U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democrat Chris Coons and Republican Michael Katz. Now the general election is finally under way. Mail-in ballots have gone out in several states.

And with just seven weeks left until Election Day, Lisa Desjardins takes a closer look at the increasingly competitive match for the U.S. Senate.

Lisa Desjardins:

Democrats are looking to North Carolina as one of their best chances to flip a Republican Senate seat. And President Trump is taking a firsthand look. He's there today to try to help his handpicked candidate, former Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley.

A recent Elon University poll shows the Democrat, former Governor Roy Cooper, with a double-digit lead over Whatley.

For an on-the-ground report, I'm joined by Colin Campbell of public media station WUNC.

Colin, just take us there. Where does this race stand?

Colin Campbell, WUNC:

Yes, so this is a race where we were expecting it to be a lot tighter than it has been, at least in the polls that we have seen. That lead that Governor Roy Cooper had hasn't really changed a whole lot over the last few months, and we sort of expected it to tighten up.

But this is the first we're seeing of President Trump and really any of the high-ranking members of his administration actually coming to North Carolina to campaign with Whatley. So we will certainly see if that helps boost him among Republicans. But the president's approval ratings in North Carolina are kind of the worst that they have been, and this is the case for many other states as well.

So whether this helps him with swing voters sort of remains to be seen, but certainly energizes the Republican base to have Trump here in North Carolina.

Lisa Desjardins:

How is Whatley handling Trump specifically? Not every Republican candidate wants Trump to fly into their state or district right now.

Colin Campbell:

Yes, and for a while we were wondering whether we would see the president in the state, and certainly this seems like a conscious choice on Whatley's part.

As a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, there's not a whole lot of daylight between Whatley and Trump. He really hasn't made much of an effort to distance himself from anything the president or his administration has been doing. He talks about Trump less on the campaign trail than he did earlier on, which seems to be a strategic choice to focus more on attacking his opponent than he is praising the president's administration.

But, certainly, you don't see a whole lot of difference between Whatley's campaign and his position on a lot of these national issues and the president's.

Lisa Desjardins:

If you had to pick one or two key issues in this Senate race in North Carolina, what would they be?

Colin Campbell:

I think affordability is probably the top one. I mean, the economy here is an issue. And Governor Roy -- former Governor Roy Cooper has been making that his signature issue. He does these Make Stuff Cost Less Tour events, he calls them, across the state, promoting his plans for that.

Whatley has been more focused on a crime -- tough-on-crime message, trying to tie Governor Cooper to people who've been let out of jail or certain criminal instances and policies that he's had. And then you have also got a lot of discussion about A.I. and data centers that have been popping up around the state, but less by the candidates in this race.

The candidates really have sort of picked their lanes, whether it be crime or affordability, and are sticking to that, and that seems to be the theme of most of the campaign events we have seen in this state so far.

Lisa Desjardins:

Colin Campbell of WUNC, a state to watch. We appreciate your reporting.

Colin Campbell:

Thanks, Lisa.