Praising President Donald Trump and railing against Democrats, Republican Michael Whatley joined in a chorus of conservative voices Wednesday at the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention in Texas, promising to support tax cuts and family values.
“I will fight for our way of life, and I will fight to keep the Democratic, radical, extreme, far-left agenda out of the Senate,” Whatley, the GOP nominee for North Carolina’s open U.S. Senate seat, said in a speech hours before Trump himself was set to take the stage.
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The Dallas speech offered Whatley an opportunity to reach a national conservative audience and gin up enthusiasm for his campaign among the GOP faithful at a crucial juncture in the race — as he trails Democratic nominee Roy Cooper in fundraising and in the polls. Libertarian Shannon Bray and Green Party candidate Michael Dublin are also running for the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who isn’t seeking reelection.
Last month a poll by Catawba College found 65% of Democratic-leaning voters planned to vote in this year’s midterms, but just 58% of Republican-leaning voters said the same. Michael Bitzer, the Catawba political science professor who conducted the poll, said Wednesday that those numbers make it clear that if Whatley wants to win, he needs to work on “generating enthusiasm and energy among Trump base voters to show up.”
Whatley’s chances in November could largely come down to how conservative voters feel about Trump’s own record, Bitzer added. Trump’s approval ratings have declined considerably during his second term.
“Any further connection to an unpopular president may give further energy to Democrats to show up to vote against the president and his party,” said Bitzer, who has studied state and national politics for years.
North Carolina is a closely divided state — Tillis won election in 2014 and 2020 despite receiving under 50% of the vote each time — and oftentimes candidates seek to appeal to the moderate voters who swing between parties and can help decide elections here.
Whatley is not following that strategy. He’s instead going all-in on his support for Trump and his “Make America Great Again” movement.
Some political analysts say that’s a wise move, not only because of Whatley’s recent role leading the national Republican Party that would be difficult to distance himself from, but also because his opponent already has a proven history of winning over the moderate voters who might be willing to vote for candidates on either side.
Cooper has never lost a statewide election. He won election as governor in 2016 and 2020 even as North Carolina also backed Trump for president, meaning there were — and possibly still are — a not-insignificant number of Trump supporters across the state who also support Cooper.
An Elon University poll released last month showed Cooper with an 11-point lead over Whatley (53% to 42%) among likely voters. Cooper had more support from his party and independents, the poll showed. Cooper was favored by 93% of Democrats. Whatley was preferred by 84% of Republicans. Independents — who make up an enormous voting bloc in the state — split 49% for Cooper and 22% for Whatley. Bray and Dublin had 1% and 2% support overall, respectively.
Whatley is leaning into his support for Trump, who has endorsed him, as he seeks to gin up enthusiasm among the GOP base. Whatley has also sought to paint Cooper as an extreme liberal.
“Roy Cooper was the worst governor in the history of North Carolina,” Whatley said Wednesday. “The American dream, and families all across our nation, are under assault today thanks to the radical, extreme policies of Democrats like Roy Cooper.”
After Wednesday’s speech, Cooper’s campaign dismissed Whatley’s attacks and pointed to Whatley’s history as a lobbyist and political operative.
“Michael Whatley is spending time with the people he’s spent his career delivering for – his fellow DC insiders,” Cooper spokesman Jordan Monaghan said in a written statement. “Whatley has pushed to double health care premiums while Big Pharma stocks he owned spiked, cheered on the Iran war while his oil stocks rose and made millions lobbying for Big Oil and utility companies including Duke Energy as electric bills went through the roof.”
Whatley lobbed his own health care attacks on Cooper in Wednesday’s speech.
“Under Roy Cooper's reign, North Carolina became the most expensive state in the nation for healthcare costs,” Whatley said. He didn’t explain how he believed the governor in North Carolina might be able to influence the billing practices of health insurance companies or hospitals, but he said Cooper had “not surprisingly” received campaign contributions from those in the health care industry.
“Let's talk about what Republicans have accomplished for working families,” Whatley told cheering supporters Wednesday, listing off policies such as a new income tax break for tipped wages, and $200 million for rural healthcare in North Carolina.
That $200 million will cover only a fraction of the billions of dollars in cuts to health care expected to soon hit North Carolina, due to Trump’s deep cuts to Medicaid that are slated to go into effect just after the election.
Tillis opposed those cuts — which he estimated would take as much as $39 billion out of the state economy in the next decade — leading Trump to threaten to back a challenger against him. Tillis then decided not to seek reelection this year, clearing the way for Trump’s preferred candidate, Whatley.
Trump’s successful 2024 campaign focused largely on promises to bring down inflation. But many of his main priorities since retaking office — instituting new tariffs, deporting immigrant laborers and launching invasions of Venezuela and Iran that drove up oil prices — have had the opposite effect, contributing to rising gas prices, groceries prices and more.
In all, polls show, Trump’s second term has led to decreased enthusiasm among many of the people who helped return him to office in the 2024 elections while also riling up the opposition. Democrats are hoping to ride the wave of shifting popular opinion to victories in Trump-supporting states like North Carolina in this year’s midterm elections, as they seek to retake control of Congress.
“If Whatley ties himself too closely to the president, and the president’s approval numbers continue to decline, Whatley may see the president drag his candidacy down — a very classic mid-term political environment dynamic at play,” Bitzer, the Catawba professor, said.