Democrat Roy Cooper won North Carolina’s open U.S. Senate seat on Tuesday, Nov. 3, defeating Republican Michael Whatley and flipping a Republican-held seat in what CNBC called “a crucial victory for Democrats seeking control of the chamber,” the AP projects. CBS News also projected Cooper the winner, and WRAL reported that NBC News called the race on the strength of unofficial results. North Carolina scheduled its polls to close at 7:30 p.m. Eastern (4:30 p.m. PT), but extended hours in several counties pushed statewide results back by 45 minutes, CNBC reported, citing the state election board. According to CNBC, the victory marks “the first time Democrats have won a North Carolina Senate election since 2008.”
The margin looked lopsided in the early count. “Early returns showed Cooper with 67% to Whatley’s 30%,” WRAL reported, with Libertarian Shannon Bray and the Green Party’s Michael Dublin under 1% apiece. Counting continued Tuesday night, and WRAL noted that the state will not make the results official until later this month. Whatley told supporters in Gastonia that he called Cooper to concede, according to WRAL, and Cooper told his own crowd that he spoke with Whatley and that his opponent acknowledged the result, according to an Associated Press report published by PBS News.
Cooper, 69, served two terms as governor and holds the record as the longest-serving attorney general in North Carolina history, according to CBS News. CNBC reported that he won the governorship in both 2016 and 2020 even as Trump carried the state. WRAL described him as a former governor, attorney general and state legislator “who has never lost an election in his 40-year political career.” Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chairman, “had never previously run for office and entered the Senate race after President Trump's encouragement,” CBS News reported.
The seat opened when Tillis chose not to run again. CNBC reported that Tillis announced his retirement in June 2025 after attacks from Trump over his “no” vote on the president’s “big beautiful bill.” On Tuesday night Tillis congratulated his successor in a post on X, according to CBS News: “I look forward to working with him during the transition,” he wrote. “Representing the Old North State in the world's most deliberative body is an honor of a lifetime and Susan and I wish Roy and Kristin the very best in the years ahead.”
In a downtown Raleigh hotel ballroom, supporters “erupted into cheers, hugs and chants” when they learned of the call, according to the AP report published by PBS News; the crowd began chanting “Cooper! Cooper!” North Carolina Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton told the AP, “He's woven into the fabric of North Carolina.” Democratic Gov. Josh Stein said voters chose “competence over chaos,” the AP reported.
Cooper framed the result as a rebuke of Washington. “Tonight, we told Washington loud and clear that North Carolinians will always matter more than the billionaires and the insiders,” he told supporters, according to CNBC. In a clip posted by Sky News, he told the crowd, “You said this has to stop,” as he criticized what Sky described as the “chaos and corruption in Washington.” He promised to act as an “independent voice” for the state, the AP reported, and added, according to a CBS News clip: “I will always put you, the people of North Carolina, first.” In an AP clip on X, he told supporters, “North Carolinians, I accept your job offer.”
Watch: Roy Cooper’s victory speech in Raleigh, posted on X
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He leaned on the same themes that ran through his campaign. CNBC reported that Cooper built his run around a promise to “make stuff cost less,” aimed at families facing grocery bills, farmers facing higher costs and small businesses hurt by tariffs. On Tuesday he said the campaign stood up for people who felt crushed by Trump’s tariffs and the cost of fuel and fertilizer “because of this never-ending war,” according to the AP. He closed on optimism, CNBC reported: “I am still a prisoner of hope.” Days earlier, in Smithfield, he explained his decision to run by citing a Bible verse, WRAL reported: “To whom much is given, much is required.”
Voters appear to have tied Whatley closely to the president. In the CNBC Voter Poll, 58% said Whatley stood too close to Trump, and only 36% viewed him favorably, leaving him 14 points underwater, CNBC reported. A WRAL/WSOC News Poll in mid-October found that 60% of North Carolinians likely to vote disapproved of the job Trump has done since returning to the presidency, according to WRAL, which reported that Whatley’s campaign website listed his top issue as a pledge to “enact the Trump agenda.” CNBC reported that Republicans had scaled back spending in the state as Cooper held a polling lead, and WRAL reported that every poll since August showed Cooper ahead.
Analysts gave the candidate much of the credit. Catawba College political scientist Michael Bitzer told WRAL that Democrats “could not have asked for a better state-associated candidate than Roy Cooper.” WRAL also called the result a breakthrough for North Carolina Democrats, who for years courted out-of-state money to win high-profile federal races, only to fall short even as Democrats won statewide races further down the ballot.
The flip matters for control of the chamber. WRAL reported that Democrats need to flip four Senate seats nationwide to retake the majority, and that the party also targets seats in Maine, Texas, Iowa, Ohio and Alaska. CBS News projected that Democrats also held Georgia, with Sen. Jon Ossoff, and New Hampshire, with Chris Pappas, on Tuesday night. This desk will follow the overall Senate count as more races get called.