#NCSEN26: Poll Time! (Whatley v. Cooper)
The drive-bys are already fast-forwarding to the general election for our soon-to-be-vacant US Senate seat. There is STILL a primary to be held in March.
This latest polling has Cooper up 47 percent to 41 percent over Whatley. 
Six points. Some are trying to spin that as close. It might be in a local or legislative race. But a statewide race? That’s a different story.
Twelve percent undecided is pretty low at this stage of the game. You’ve got a relatively small cohort of people who might be persuaded to move one way or another. Long-time politics watchers will tell you good chunk of undecideds end up going against the incumbent / incumbent party or not voting at all.
Let’s look at the 2020 race for governor – the last time Cooper was on the ballot:
That’s a victory margin for Cooper of 4.51 percent. The current poll says six percent against Whatley for a hypothetical 2026 US Senate race. (Dan Forest was the sitting Lt. Governor at the time.) That’s a difference of 248,185 votes between the two main party standard-bearers. At a 4.51 percent spread. In a year Trump won North Carolina.
Right now, six percent separates Cooper from Whatley. That’s a lot of votes we’re talking about here.
Let’s look at what the poll found for favorability, name ID and other things:
Cooper has 51 percent favorability vs. 17 percent for Whatley.
Cooper has higher negatives (33 percent to 16 percent), but he’s been much more high-profile than Whatley. He’s certainly been in the news more.
Never heard of him? Only 3 percent said that about Cooper while 36 percent said that about Whatley. That tells you people have some idea of what they’re getting with Cooper, but not so much with Whatley.
The Unsure folks (13 percent for Cooper and 30 percent for Whatley) are where the real battle will take place.
The polled. Here is the partisan breakdown of the 1000 NC resident participants in the poll:
359 Republicans
312 Democrats
329 Independent or Other
Democrats are the least-represented in this poll, but their candidate is leading significantly. It’s pretty clear to those of us on the ground that Mike Whatley is having trouble with his party’s base — despite the backing of Donald Trump.
Remember, Trump also backed Mark Robinson in the 2024 gubernatorial race.
In spite of the desire of the drive-by media to fast forward to November 2026, there IS still a primary for US Senate in March 2026. Navy veteran, attorney, and MAGA activist Don Brown will be on the ballot with Whatley in March.
The fact that Whatley is 6 points behind Cooper is a definite concern. But who else in the GOP other than Whatley can begin to raise the money for an ad campaign to drench the airwaves and other media with messages showing just how bad Cooper really is? The former Governor has been treated almost heroically by the state media for years and will continue to do so, therefore only a candidate with a big barrel of money has any hope of reversing his “nice guy” image. I dare say if you matched the other GOP primary candidates against Cooper, they would be 20 points behind him, so we need to talk about solutions, not just the problems. What does the Haymaker propose?