Breaking: Cooper by EIGHT, TEN and FOURTEEN. (But hey, Trump’s coming.)

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And The Streak lives on.  If this keeps up, we may start owing the estate of the late great Ray Stevens some royalty $$$$.

Seriously, The Streak we’re referring to is Roy Cooper‘s amazing, year-long streak – over 30 – of polling wins.  We’re talking GOP and DEM polls, too.  Here are the three latest:

Trafalgar Group is GOP-friendly. Carolina Forward is, decidedly, NOT.  And WRAL? Well …..

It’s interesting that Team Whatley cannot (or won’t)  produce a poll showing their guy with a lead.  Even Tillis and Dole had polls where they led. 

Despite the spin of Whatley’s spokesman, this ain’t a great spot to be in at the onset of early voting.  (That starts Thursday, by the way.)

You can make excuses about the leanings of the pollsters.  But three dozen polls over a year coordinating to make Whatley look bad?  Good luck selling that. 

As a reminder,  Elizabeth Dole currently holds the record for receiving the worst beat-down of any NCGOP candidate for US Senate in the last 50 years.  She lost to Kay Hagan in 2008 by 8.5 percent.

The way these polls are headed, Mike Whatley is at risk of receiving a beating worse than Mark Robinson‘s 2024 experience.  Robinson lost to Josh Stein by 14.6 points.

Whatley coming back from this and winning would be on par with what Harry Truman did against Thomas Dewey in 1948.

Remember, we were told THIS is the only guy who can compete with Cooper.  THE ONLY GUY. 

Have no fear, though.  Trump is coming back to the state on October 20 for a rally in Greenville. His rallies worked miracles for Darline Graham in South Carolina.  Perhaps lightning might strike again on this side of the border.

The rally is reported to benefit Laurie Buckhout in NC-01 as well as Whatley.  But Greenville is home to Congressman Greg Murphy.  There’s no word as to whether he’ll be part of the rally.  Maybe he should be.  He’s one of the two incumbents we heard were deadlocked with their no-name Democrat opponents (in internal polling).  The other?  David Rouzer in NC-07.

The drive-by media is already test-driving the spin that this is a revolt against Trump by the unwashed masses.  Actually, a lot of it is voters angry at being promised a lot of action in 2024 and then getting no action on any of it in the ensuing two years. That’s with GOP control of The White House, the US House, and the US Senate.

Mike Whatley and Laurie Buckhout were both hand-picked to run in NC by the Trump political machine.  The fields were cleared and they were flooded with cash.  Once the primary passed, those DC-run campaigns plummeted downhill at record speed. Those two races offer clear messages about the perils of turning over complete control of your candidate recruitment and campaign management to DC (and, some would argue, Raleigh).

Buckhout and Whatley are lost causes.  Now, we need to ensure that those two don’t hamstring and take down some quality candidates down the GOP ticket.