Former Gov. Roy Cooper flips Senate seat blue in North Carolina

Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) is projected to win the Senate race in the Tar Heel State, according to Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) , notching a Democratic win in the seat being vacated by Sen. Thom Tillis (R).

Cooper leads former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley by about 35 points with 51 percent of precincts reporting.

Cooper has been favored to win for months, as a popular governor with high name recognition in the key swing state. His opponent was endorsed by President Trump but saw national Republicans shift their funding and attention away from him in the later months of the race.

Tillis announced his retirement plans in June 2025, a day after joining Democrats to oppose Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act over its cuts to Medicaid benefits . Since then, he has become one of the more outspoken critics of the Trump administration.

But he still backed Whatley and publicly worried about the advantage Democrats would have over Republicans due to unpopular Trump policies, such as the war in Iran.

Cooper, 69, was governor in the state from 2017 to 2025 after serving 16 years as attorney general. Previously, he practiced law and then was a state legislator, later rising to majority leader of the state Senate in the late 1990s. In all that time, he never lost an election.

As the state’s chief executive, he pushed for a sweeping expansion of Medicaid benefits and a slate of laws protecting victims of domestic violence, among other measures. Cooper also pushed for increases to teacher and state worker pay and state funding for infrastructure projects.

DDHQ gave the Democrat an 85 percent chance of flipping the seat ahead of Election Day.