DC Republicans slipped $$$$ to Whatley campaign before he even announced.
If it wasn’t enough to hear the GOPe tell you the primaries are irrelevant — if it wasn’t enough to watch party leaders blatantly violate party rules against meddling in contested primaries — THIS ought to send you over the edge:
[…] The National Republican Senatorial Committee and its chair, Sen. Tim Scott, are expressing confidence that Whatley can beat former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
In a memo compiled by the NRSC and obtained by NOTUS, the committee laid out why it believes this seat is firmly in Republican hands. […]
“Democrats will continue to treat it like a battleground, but President Trump’s dominance across three election cycles, voter registration trends, and overwhelming support for conservative priorities all point in one direction: continued GOP dominance in North Carolina’s federal elections and a Senator Michael Whatley,” the memo reads.
The memo points to how Trump won the state three times and how he “improved his vote share in 83 out of 100 counties and made significant gains in rural and working-class communities across the state.”
“Since 2008, the last time Democrats won a Senate seat in North Carolina, their voter registration advantage has collapsed, with a more than 850,000-voter shift toward Republicans,” the memo says. “Nearly 10% of that occurred since President Trump’s re-election in November 2024, narrowing the Democrat advantage to just 18,019 today and positioning Republicans to take the lead for the first time in North Carolina’s history before voting begins next fall.” […]
Whatley had ZERO impact on Trump’s success in the state. Trump’s first win in NC — in 2016 – was pre-Whatley. The GOP incumbent lost the governor’s race that year.
In 2020, the GOP lost a governor’s race BIG while Trump squeaked out a win. The GOP also lost the governor’s race BIG in 2024, while Trump was winning the state.
In 2022, the US House GOP partisan breakdown for North Carolina went from 9R-4D to 7R-7D.
Prior to Whatley’s arrival at NCGOP HQ, the GOP took a veto proof majority in the legislature in 2017-2018. They lost it in 2018, but held simple majorities. The Senate won back their veto proof majority in 2022. Via some party-switching, the state House won theirs back in 2023. That didn’t last long. The House currently has only a simple majority — giving the Democrat governor some breathing room on his vetoes.
Yet, Mike Whatley is portrayed as some sort of campaign maestro or Svengali. He and his team could have closed up shop at NCGOP HQ and headed to Tahiti for six months and no one would have noticed. Somebody is selling President Trump a load of crap.
MORE:
[…] Scott is also working to ensure that the entire Senate Republican Conference gets behind Whatley. According to a source familiar with his comments, Scott told his Republican colleagues in the Senate on Tuesday that he would be endorsing Whatley
[…] With Cooper’s fundraising operation in mind, Scott is already urging his colleagues to get behind Whatley not just with their endorsements, but with their dollars as well.
The source familiar with Scott’s remarks on Tuesday said the NRSC chair asked his fellow Republican senators to make a maximum contribution to Whatley’s campaign directly and to join the host committee for an NRSC-hosted fundraiser for Whatley set to happen in September.
On Wednesday, before Whatley’s announcement, the NRSC actually joined Whatley’s joint fundraising account and cut a maximum check of $62,000 directly to the RNC chair’s campaign. And on Thursday, NRSC operatives pressed conference staff and consultants to have their clients sign and send fundraising copy on behalf of Whatley, the source said. […]
DC did this to us at least once before with Elizabeth Dole — who ran in 2002 despite having not resided in North Carolina since the (Lyndon not Andrew) Johnson administration. That political master-stroke earned us the pleasure of six years of Kay Hagan.
There will be a primary for this US Senate seat in 2026 — despite the scam the political establishment and the compliant liars in the drive-by media are trying to perpetrate. At least one Republican not named Whatley – Washington County native, Mecklenburg County attorney and current Union County resident Don Brown — will be on the primary ballot. Check him out.
The political class in DC and Raleigh fear those of us in the unwashed class sending them someone who can’t be bought off and will actually stand for something and DO what he or she promised on the campaign trail. THAT is why they try to pretend there is no primary. THAT is why they want to talk about November instead of the March party primary.
Primaries are one of the few ways we in the unwashed crowd get to make our voices heard. Stomping out the primaries leaves us with the rotten general election choices who have been selected and paid off by the monied special interests. Not a single public servant among them.
