Roy Cooper wins U.S. Senate race in North Carolina after contentious campaign

CHARLOTTE — Former Gov. Roy Cooper will be the next U.S. Senator for North Carolina.

The Associated Press called the race just after North Carolina released the first batch of election results at about 8:20 p.m. The AP declared Cooper the winner over Republican candidate Michael Whatley.

It’s clear that Roy Cooper isn’t like most Democrats. He has never lost a statewide election in North Carolina, and his well-established record is what allowed him to run a race that was solely focused on bringing down costs.

It was a dominant victory for Cooper, and he’ll now be North Carolina’s first Democrat in the U.S. Senate since Kay Hagan.

In his victory speech, Cooper said he was ready to get to work to end the Iran War, lower gas prices and protect Medicaid expansion. He said it would have been easy to stay on the sidelines, but he felt called to enter the race.

“I am determined that no matter the challenges in front of me, I will be an independent voice ready to work with anyone for the state that has given me so much,” Cooper told his supporters Tuesday evening. “I told you many times on Sundays in church we kept coming back to a passage from Luke: To whom much is given, much is required.”

Cooper expanded the map, not only winning in the places that he was supposed to, like Democratic Mecklenburg and Wake counties. He also won in large margins or overperformed in counties like Cabarrus, Union, and Gaston.

EARLIER COVERAGE

Michael Whatley and Roy Cooper are in the running for outgoing Senator Thom Tillis’s seat, and Tuesday night will reveal the result after a contentious campaign between the two candidates.

In attack ads that blanketed the airwaves over the summer, Whatley accused Cooper of releasing thousands of prisoners; Cooper, meanwhile, blasted Whatley for a misleading attack ad and for hiring a convicted child sex offender to be on his campaign team.

Now, eyes across the nation are on North Carolina as the race for Tillis’ seat could determine control of the U.S. Senate.

Whatley on the campaign trail

Former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley is holding his election night watch party at the Loray Mill Event Center in Gastonia. This race is one of the most competitive in the country.

We caught up with Whatley at the National Guard Armory in Gastonia, as he greeted voters, and made his final pitch for their vote. He did the same this morning in Johnston County.

Whatley laid out the stakes he sees in this race.

“When you think about the stakes of this election, it comes down to whether America is going to be a strong country or not, and when America is a weak country, the world is a far more dangerous place, so you think about our economy, you think about our borders, you think about our national security posture, we need to be a strong country, and it’s going to be very hard. President Trump to work on those issues that really truly matter for every state, including North Carolina, with a Democratic House and Democratic Senate,” Whatley said.

Cooper looks to break Democratic losing streak

Roy Cooper, Michael Whatley await results in NC Senate race after contentious campaign

No Democrat has won a U.S. Senate race in North Carolina since 2008, when the late Kay Hagan won. Cooper is trying to break that streak.

Everyone knows former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, and for better or worse, has an opinion on him. So his campaign looked a lot different than other Democratic campaigns.

He never held any huge rallies, and national Democratic figures stayed far away.

Whatley has done pretty much the opposite. This is a state President Donald Trump has won every election in, and Whatley appeared with the president and vice president as much as possible.

As the campaign entered its final days, both candidates stayed laser-focused on affordability.

Cooper’s campaign promised to make stuff cost less, while Whatley promised to push policies that will let you make more and keep more.

Cooper said that he believes the Senate should play an important role in President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“I think the last two years of this president’s term, there will be some Republican senators, particularly those who have gotten reelected, who are ready to bring back the checks and balances that the framers of the Constitution intended,” Cooper said.

Cooper’s election night party is in Raleigh.

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