Former two-term Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper sailed to victory Tuesday, appearing to defeat his Trump-backed Republican opponent by double digits to flip a GOP-held Senate seat in a state the president won three times.

Cooper, who was term-limited after leading the battleground state from 2017 to 2025, is projected to have defeated former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Michael Whatley in the race to succeed two-term Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who opted to retire after President Donald Trump threatened to field a primary challenger against him. The Democrat won 66.8% of the vote to Whatley’s 31.6%, with 50% of ballots counted, according to The Associated Press.

Like many Democratic candidates who emerged victorious in elections held during Trump’s second term, Cooper campaigned heavily on the issue of affordability, prominently employing the campaign slogan “Make Stuff Cost Less.” He has specifically vowed to lower costs for groceries, healthcare, energy, childcare, and housing — all of which have skyrocketed during the Trump administration’s unpopular war with Iran.

Whatley, meanwhile, campaigned as a close Trump ally and expressed support for the war as a means to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Despite having won the state in 2016, 2020, and 2024, the president’s October approval rating in North Carolina was 37 percent, according to a High Point University poll of 620 likely voters in the Tar Heel State.

Cooper’s win marks the first upper chamber seat to flip in the 2026 midterm elections; however, both polling and financial moves by the campaigns and allied groups ahead of Election Day telegraphed that the race was effectively over weeks earlier. (Read more from “2 Democrats Flip Three-Time Trump State’s Senate Seat By Blowout Margin” HERE)