Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper told supporters at a campaign stop in rural Wayne County Thursday that he stands by his record on public safety, defending his actions as North Carolina governor a day after nationally televised attacks from President Donald Trump.
North Carolina “has become a crime-ridden state” because of Cooper, Trump said Wednesday in a speech at this year’s Republican National Committee convention in Texas.
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“Did you ever see North Carolina, how much crime they seem to have now? They never had crime,” said Trump, who has endorsed Republican Michael Whatley in the race for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat.
Numerous polls, including one released Thursday morning, have shown Cooper with a comfortable lead over Whatley, giving Democrats hope of flipping a Senate seat in a Trump-supporting state in November, which could help their party retake control of Congress.
“I worked to keep people safe,” Cooper told supporters Thursday at St. James AME Zion Church in Goldsboro.
Crime was down statewide in the first half of this year, WRAL reported last week. That’s a continuation of safety trends in recent years: Crime rates dropped every year of Cooper’s second term as governor, data from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety shows.
Cooper cited his 16 years as attorney general, prosecuting people and defending criminal convictions on appeal for the state, adding that: “As governor, I signed legislation that made it tougher on gang leaders and tougher on pretrial release, working to keep our communities safe.”
It was a rare divergence by Cooper from the main economic themes of his campaign, which he has given the theme: “make stuff cost less.” Cooper makes stops around the state at churches, community centers and other venues every few days, delivering a stump speech focused on inflation, affordability and corruption in Washington.
A majority of respondents to a new Elon University poll voters identified affordability issues as playing an important role in their voting decisions. Eighty-six percent said inflation and cost of living were very important and 73% said the general economy and healthcare were very important, according to the poll released Thursday.
“Republicans, Democrats, unaffiliated, they know something's wrong” Cooper said Thursday. “They know we need a course correction. There are so many people looking up at the middle class, thinking, ‘I'm never going to get there. Is the American dream dead?’ There, there are so many people who are in the middle class who are barely hanging on.”
Trump, Whatley and other Republicans have sought to shift the debate in the race away from the economy, and toward public safety instead. Inflation has continued rising at elevated levels under Trump due in part to his pursuit of new tariffs, war in Iran and other policies.
Cooper, Whatley trade barbs
One of Republicans’ main talking points has been the 2025 fatal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee living in Charlotte. Police say she was murdered in a seemingly random attack by Decarlos Brown, a homeless man with a history of criminal charges and mental health issues.
Whatley, Trump and others have repeated the disproven claim that Cooper let Brown out of prison early, including in the speeches each of them gave Wednesday.
Trump said Wednesday Cooper “released this animal into North Carolina society.”
Added Whatley: “Her blood is on Roy Cooper's hands.”
Although PolitiFact and other outlets have disproven such claims, the Whatley campaign has latched onto them anyway, searching for some opening that might chip away at Cooper’s support.
It remains to be seen if that strategy can work. The Elon poll released Thursday showed Cooper up 11 percentage points over Whatley — with 49% of likely voters backing Cooper, 38% backing Whatley, 3% backing a third-party candidate and the final 8% still undecided.
Jason Husser, the poll’s director, told WRAL in an interview that up to this point many people haven’t been paying attention to politics. But the speeches, rallies and ads are all ramping up now with less than two months to go, and he expects to see those numbers change, and the undecided voters start sorting themselves into camps. That means there’s still a chance for Whatley, he added.
“More money is going to be spent,” Husser said Thursday. “We're really seeing the campaigns go all out at this point. We're seeing more charged rhetoric coming from some of the campaigns, and so we will probably see some movements from here. I don't think this race is a done deal, in any sort of way.”
Husser added that while the public safety attacks on Cooper aren’t likely to persuade many undecided voters, they might be successful in energizing Republican voters who might be less inclined to vote over dissatisfaction with the economy, Husser said.
“When the economy is not perceived as good, the incumbent party really needs to get people to think about things that are not about the economy,” he said. “And crime is certainly one of those things that gets people's attention.”
Cooper, meanwhile, has gone on the offensive in response to the public safety attacks against him. On Thursday he pointed to Whatley’s work with Harvey West — a convicted sex offender who pleaded guilty to crimes against two young girls while serving as a police officer — in top organizing roles for the North Carolina Republican Party, while Whatley was in charge of the North Carolina Republican Party.
“You've seen the ads on television and the attacks on me about crime,” Cooper said Thursday. “Let me tell you about crime and Michael Whatley.”
Cooper then detailed West’s work for the state GOP, adding: “Many people in the Republican Party objected to this. But Michael Whatley put him in an important position, that had access to teenagers and to children. He appointed him there. You know why? Because he could raise political money. He made the decision that politics was more important than public safety.”
When asked for comment Thursday on Cooper’s claims about Whatley and West, a Whatley spokesman instead brought up the upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Whatley has largely avoided answering questions about West in the past, except to say that West first began working for the NCGOP prior to Whatley’s time in charge. Earlier this year West told PolitiFact that while Whatley didn’t appoint him originally, Whatley did keep him on board, and that he was always open about his record as a sex offender with party leaders.
“People make mistakes, they serve their time, and they come back,” West told PolitiFact. “Isn’t that the whole point of rehabilitation, so they can go back into the community and serve?”
Helene attacks
Seeking other topics on which to attack Cooper, Trump also brought up Hurricane Helene, which hit North Carolina during Cooper’s final few months in office.
The federal government is typically in charge of funding most disaster relief efforts. But as Trump seeks to cut government spending, the amount of disaster recovery spending sent to states, including North Carolina, has plummeted.
Helene was the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, causing at least $60 billion in damages in North Carolina. The federal government has covered less than 20% of the damage from Helene so far — leaving many western North Carolina counties holding the bill, or delaying recovery efforts. After Katrina, under President George W. Bush, the federal government paid for 62% of the estimated damages.
Trump sees it differently.
“Cooper was governor when North Carolina was hit by the worst, water-filled, record-setting hurricane,” Trump said Wednesday. “This was a hurricane of massive water, maybe the most we've ever had hit this country, water that left the state ravaged, and he did nothing to help. He was a disaster during that very traumatic time. And it only got fixed on Jan. 20 [2025] when I came into office.”
A Cooper campaign spokesman said Thursday that as governor, “Roy Cooper led North Carolina through several major catastrophic storms, activating emergency resources, keeping families safe and securing significant state and federal funding for recovery.”
Cooper’s campaign also pointed to the low level of federal aid to western North Carolina under Trump, saying that if Cooper is elected to the U.S. Senate, he will “work with leaders in both parties to fast-track federal funding to ensure Western North Carolina gets every federal dollar its owed.”
And while Trump has issues with Cooper’s leadership during Helene, Cooper on Thursday hammered Trump for his leadership of the ongoing Iran War, and criticized Whatley for supporting it.
“He cheers on this war in Iran,” Cooper said of Whatley, even though “we know that gas and diesel prices are going up. The price of most everything is going up because of this war that seems to be endless, without a strategy to end it.”
Whatley spokesman Jonathan Felts defended Whatley’s support of the Iran War. “Michael is opposed to Iran having the ability to wipe out the U.S. of A in a nuclear armageddon,” Felts told WRAL on Thursday.