Roy Cooper Flips North Carolina's Senate Seat for Democrats, CBS News Projects

Democrat Roy Cooper won North Carolina's open U.S. Senate seat Tuesday night, CBS News projected, handing his party the first flip of a Republican-held seat in the 2026 midterm elections. Cooper, a former two-term governor, defeated Michael Whatley, the former Republican National Committee chairman who had been recruited and endorsed by President Donald Trump.

The seat opened up after GOP Sen. Thom Tillis decided not to seek reelection. Tillis made that decision in 2025 after Trump threatened him with a primary challenger when he balked at supporting the president's tax cut and spending bill. North Carolina has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2008, and the race had been expected to be competitive from the start because Trump carried the state by only three points in 2024.

Cooper, 69, is North Carolina's longest-serving state attorney general in history and served as governor from 2017 to 2024. He ran on affordability, and each campaign stop was billed as part of a "Make Stuff Cost Less" tour. Whatley, 57, who worked in President George W. Bush's administration and as chief of staff to former Sen. Elizabeth Dole before leading the state Republican Party, ran on Trump's agenda and on crime and immigration. It was his first race for elected office.

Polls showed the economy, not crime, was the top concern among North Carolina voters. Cooper and national Democratic groups also outspent Whatley and Republicans by a wide margin. A few weeks before the election, national GOP organizations pulled their TV ads from the state and redirected money to other battlegrounds, including Kansas. NPR reported that Whatley never led in public polling and that Cooper's advantage widened as the race went on.

The Iran war and high gas prices did not help the Republican ticket. CBS News noted that Whatley's closeness to an unpopular president did not appear to improve his chances. Trump and Vice President JD Vance both held multiple rallies in North Carolina in the final weeks. Republican strategist Patrick Sebastian, who did not work for the Whatley campaign, told NPR the visits probably improved base turnout but were not enough. "Really it's the economy is Issue A," he said, adding that voters who go to Walmart for groceries and can only get 80 percent of what they used to buy are focused on prices.

The result matters because of Senate math. Republicans hold a six-seat majority, so Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control. Cooper's win is the first step on that path. Democrats also held Georgia, where Sen. Jon Ossoff won reelection, and New Hampshire, where Rep. Chris Pappas won the seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. Six Senate races had been rated as toss-ups going into the night, and votes were still being counted in those contests as of Tuesday evening.

Democrats also went into the night favored to win the House. Republicans hold a narrow majority there, 218 seats to 214 for Democrats, which means Democrats need to flip only three seats. The Cook Political Report had said Democrats were likely to flip between 15 and 25 seats. Exit polling cited by CBS News put Trump's approval rating at 38 percent, and roughly three-quarters of voters said they were at least dissatisfied with the direction of the country.

Cooper's victory also gives Democrats a Senate candidate with broad appeal in a state that has recently split its tickets, voting for Trump while electing Democratic governors. For Republicans, the loss removes a seat they had expected to hold with a candidate chosen by the president himself, and it raises the stakes in the remaining battlegrounds, including Maine, Michigan, Texas, Iowa and Kansas, where polls were still closing or votes were still being counted.