With Republican Sen. Thom Tillis not seeking reelection, former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley are looking to take over the Senate seat in North Carolina.
North Carolina hasn’t elected a Democratic U.S. senator since 2008, and it will be a key seat for Democrats to clip in the Senate.
Other candidates on the ballot include Libertarian Shannon Bray and Green Party candidate Michael Dublin.
Neither Whatley nor Bray responded to our candidate guide questionnaire.
If we receive responses from either of them, we will post them here.
Roy Cooper (D)
Why are you running?
The bottom line is that stuff costs too much. The price of groceries, rent, utilities, child care and health care are skyrocketing. For too many people, the middle class feels like a distant dream. And the chaos in Washington is just making it worse. The wealthy and the well-connected are getting further ahead, all at the expense of working people. My opponent, Michael Whatley, is a Washington DC insider and Big Oil and utility lobbyist who is cheering on everything from the Iran war to the chaotic tariffs making life more expensive for working people, all while claiming prices are down.
It’s time for a change in Washington. My plan to Make Stuff Cost Less can be found at roycooper.com and it includes rolling back these chaotic tariffs, ending the war in Iran, restoring health care, stopping insurance companies from denying coverage for care a doctor says you need and more.
As Senator, I’ll be focused on the issues that matter to people – supporting more good paying jobs, making health care more affordable and accessible and lowering costs for people trying to get by.
Is it time for the Iran war to end?
Yes. Our leaders need to be focused on the needs of North Carolinians here at home – that means ending this war with Iran that has been supported by my opponent Michael Whatley since day one. Leaders in Washington DC are spending tens of billions on this war the people didn’t ask for that has resulted in wounded soldiers including the death of at least 21 heroes and has spiked gas and diesel prices for working North Carolinians.
Our state is home to hundreds of thousands of active duty service members and veterans and as Senator, I’ll be focused on fighting for them and their families.
What legislation will you pursue to bring down costs?
Right now, it’s clear that Washington DC is broken. The cost of groceries, rent, utilities and more are too high for families who are just trying to make ends meet. And Washington politicians are making it worse – from cutting health care and making it more expensive to reckless tariffs that are jacking up prices everywhere.
Affordable health care in our state is at risk right now because of attacks on Medicaid and Medicare, the expiration of the ACA tax credits and greedy insurance companies. My opponent in this race, Washington DC insider Michael Whatley, led the charge to give billionaires handouts that doubled people’s health care premiums. Health care is already too expensive, and now North Carolinians are seeing their 2026 premiums skyrocket by hundreds or thousands of dollars.
In Washington, I’ll fight to keep health care affordable and roll back the chaotic policies that are raising prices and devastating our state’s farmers, small businesses and working families. I’ll work to stop big corporations from using AI to raise your grocery prices and take on the insurance companies who are ripping families off. Seniors are worried about Social Security and Medicare and I will stand up for them and their benefits. You can read all of my plans, including how I’ll work to lower the cost of food and groceries, health care, utilities, child care and housing at RoyCooper.com/CostLess.
How would you assess President Donald Trump’s second term so far?
This administration said they would tackle the cost of living on day one – not only have they not done that, they’ve made it so much worse. Extreme partisanship in Washington has made politics toxic and the federal government ineffective. If politicians there could at least sometimes put their partisanship aside to break through logjams, achieve consensus and get results, life would be better for people.
Costs across the board are too high for families who are just trying to get by. Washington politicians and Washington DC insiders like Michael Whatley are making it worse – from cutting affordable health care to a reckless war in Iran that has spiked prices to chaotic tariffs that have increased the cost of goods. As Senator, I’ll fight to make health care more affordable, take on greedy insurance companies and work to end this foreign war and the tariffs that are driving up costs.
My opponent will do and say whatever this President tells him to do and say regardless of whether it’s right for the people of our state. I’ll be a tough, independent Senator who will work with the President when I can, stand up to him when I need to and stand up to leaders in my own party when I think they’re wrong in order to do what’s right for our state.
What sets you apart from your opponents?
As Governor, I led North Carolina to be one of the fastest-growing states in the nation with a good quality of life and more access to affordable health care while I worked with Republicans to create better-paying jobs and pass tough on crime legislation. I’m also the only candidate in this race who as Attorney General prosecuted thousands of violent criminals and kept them behind bars. And as Governor, I signed tough on crime laws and stricter pretrial release bail policy to protect families and communities.
I have a track record of putting party aside to get results for people. That’s how we formed a bipartisan coalition and expanded Medicaid after years of fighting for it, bringing health care to hundreds of thousands of working North Carolinians. I’ll take that same problem solving to Washington and deliver for working families.
People deserve elected officials who are fighting for them, not lining their own pockets. My opponent led the charge to give billionaires handouts that doubled people’s health care premiums. He spent his career as a Washington DC lobbyist, helping companies like Duke Energy raise rates – and he holds hundreds of thousands of dollars of their stock. I support a ban on individual stock trading for Congress and the Executive Branch. I refuse to own or trade any individual stocks, regardless of whether a ban is passed. And I won’t become a lobbyist after leaving office.
Michael Dublin (GRE)
Why are you running?
I taught middle school language arts in North Carolina for 24 years. I had students who came to class hungry, students who slept in cars, students who wrote essays about things no child should have to live through. I told them for two decades that if they worked hard and followed the rules, things would work out. Then I watched as rents skyrocketed and wages froze, while healthcare drifted entirely out of reach for the very families I was teaching. I could not keep saying that with a straight face. I am running because somebody has to tell the truth, and because I do not owe a single dollar to the corporations that got us here. I am also running because people deserve to know there is an alternative to the two-party system. I will be on the ballot for every North Carolinian, so every voter has a real choice, not just the lesser of two evils.
Is it time for the Iran war to end?
Yes. Congress has never declared it, and the Constitution gives that power to Congress, not to any president of either party. We have spent decades and trillions in that region, and we are less safe for it. I want our troops home, no new war authorizations, and that money reinvested here in North Carolina. I lived through Vietnam, I watched Iraq, and I am not going to sit quietly while we do it a third time.
What legislation will you pursue to bring down costs?
I would introduce a universal healthcare bill so families stop paying premiums and deductibles that bankrupt them. I would fund public housing construction so the public owns the asset and rents stay affordable. I would cap prescription drug prices, ban corporate price gouging on groceries and rent, break up the monopolies that control our food and housing, and raise the federal minimum wage. Working people are not struggling because they are lazy. They are struggling because the rules were written against them.
How would you assess President Donald Trump’s second term so far?
I disagree with most of it. The tariff wars are hurting North Carolina farmers and small businesses. The mass deportations are tearing apart families, and ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians puts hundreds of thousands of people in danger. Federal workers are being squeezed with a backdoor tax increase on their retirement. The Pentagon still cannot pass an audit. I also want to be honest with you. Democrats spent years promising to fix these things and never did. The problem is bigger than one man. It is a system both parties keep feeding.
What sets you apart from your opponents?
I take no corporate PAC money, no Super PAC money, and no AIPAC money. My opponents take all three and then vote accordingly. I am the first Black third-party candidate on North Carolina’s ballot for U.S. Senate, so I know what it means to be outside the machine and still show up. I run an eco-friendly campaign. I show up in person, hold webinars, and rely on word of mouth instead of smear mail. And I teach. That is what I do. I explain things plainly, I listen, and I do not pretend the answer is complicated when it is not.
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