In a Monday morning press release, former two-term Gov. Roy Cooper officially announced he would run for U.S. Senate in next year's election.
"I want to serve as your next United States Senator because, even now, I still believe our best days are ahead of us," Cooper said in the release.
Over the weekend, he hinted that an announcement might be forthcoming. Speaking at the N.C. Democratic Party's annual Unity Dinner fundraiser, Cooper asked everyone who is planning to run for office in 2026 to stand up.
Cooper waited a moment and said: "I'm not sitting down, am I?"
The crowd of about 1,200 people at N.C. State's Talley Student Union immediately broke into a chant of "Run, Roy, run."
Cooper, who was elected to two terms as North Carolina's governor and four terms as its attorney general, is widely expected to seek the U.S. Senate seat currently held by two-term Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican who is not seeking re-election. Several media outlets have reported that an announcement could come as soon as Monday.
Fellow Democrat Wiley Nickel, a former Congressman, had previously announced a Senate run but is expected to instead run for Wake County District Attorney, WRAL reported Friday.
On the Republican side, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley is planning to run for the seat, WUNC reported last week. That news came shortly after Lara Trump, a Wilmington-area native and President Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, passed on the race.
Thursday night, Donald Trump made a Truth Social post announcing his support of Whatley's candidacy. Whatley is a former chair of the N.C. Republican Party.
"He is fantastic at everything he does, and he was certainly great at the RNC where, in the Presidential Election, we won every Swing State, the Popular Vote, and the Electoral College by a landslide!" Trump posted.
Should Whatley run, Trump wrote, he would have the President's "complete and total endorsement."
Republicans currently hold a three-seat majority in the U.S. Senate, meaning Democrats need to win four seats to take control of the chamber. The North Carolina seat is seen as one of a handful of the most competitive in the country, alongside the Georgia seat held by Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, and the Michigan seat held by retiring Sen. Gary Peters, also a Democrat.
Cook Political Report describes all three seats as toss-ups.
State Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton told reporters Saturday night that the party is focused on more than just the Senate race. The party, Clayton said, is in the midst of a tour of 54 rural counties focused exclusively on down ballot races, including the Supreme Court race for which Justice Anita Earls is seeking re-election.
"What we're doing right now, what we're focused on, is building a 100-county party infrastructure that can really withstand and be what I like to call the road that the candidates are going to drive their cars on," Clayton said.
Clayton also said that North Carolina Democrats' message leading up to 2026 will focus on pushing back against the Trump Administration.
Cooper starts making his pitch
Cooper hit on some of those issues in his remarks Saturday evening, starting to show how he could pitch himself to voters in a Senate race.
He pointed to the Trump-championed rescission package known as the Big Beautiful Bill, which keeps tax cuts from the first Trump Administration intact while enacting policies the Congressional Budget Office projects will increase the national deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next decade.
"They are running up our debt, they are disrespecting our veterans, they are cutting help for the hungry and they’re ripping away healthcare from millions of people, all to give tax breaks to the millionaires and billionaires. And it's not right," Cooper said.
Cooper urged Democrats not to sit idly by, despite a national environment where Republicans control the White House, U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and U.S. Supreme Court.
He pointed to his own record, including a fight for Medicaid expansion in North Carolina that took nearly seven full years of the eight Cooper spent in the Governor's Mansion.
"When (legislative Republicans) spent a decade blocking Medicaid expansion, we didn’t just give up and let hope fade away. We did something and that’s how we got healthcare for 675,000 working people in North Carolina," Cooper said.
Expanding Medicaid allows people between 19 and 64 years old who earn up to 138% of federal poverty level to be eligible for the federal health insurance program.
North Carolina's Medicaid expansion is now threatened by the Big Beautiful Bill.
The federal legislation gradually lowers the cap on a hospital tax that states like North Carolina use as a state match for federal Medicaid funds to 3.5%, lower than the 6% North Carolina hospitals pay.
Paired with increased bureaucratic demands for new work requirements, that provider tax cut could trigger a provision in the 2023 expansion law that requires state health officials to end the expansion program if the federal share to provide Medicaid for the expansion group ever dips below 90%, Gov. Josh Stein and others have warned.
Cooper didn't focus solely on his wins.
He also pointed to debates where he ultimately did not prevail, such as a 2023 law banning most abortions in the state after 12 weeks. Despite every Democrat voting to uphold Cooper's veto, Republicans were able to successfully override it.
Still, Cooper said, it was important to have the fight.
"Right now, we’re living in a time in this country, I think, that is as fragile as I can remember. But this beautiful experiment we call democracy, it only works when we work for it. Which means that everybody needs to stay engaged and find a way to do something," Cooper said.
