Former Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, held a 15-point lead over Republican Michael Whatley in the latest poll of the North Carolina Senate race from a GOP-affiliated pollster, a major warning sign ahead of the November 3 midterms. Cooper is running to flip the Senate seat held by Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who is not running for reelection this year, and has established a polling lead over Whatley, the former chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC). The new Harper Polling survey published Thursday gave Cooper one of his largest leads yet among North Carolina voters, with fewer than 50 days until Election Day.
The poll is notable because Harper Polling is affiliated with Republicans and was founded by Brock McCleary, who served as the National Republican Congressional Committee’s polling director. Still, a significant number of voters were undecided and up for grabs, the poll found, and neither candidate received an outright majority of support. Cooper is viewed as the favorite by forecasters like the Cook Political Report, and Democrats believe he will benefit from a favorable national environment.
But North Carolina did vote for President Donald Trump in each of his three runs, so it’s a close state. Cooper’s support stood at 49 percent, while 34 percent of respondents said they planned to cast their ballots for Whatley, the survey from Harper Polling, first reported by The Carolina Journal, found. Five percent said they would vote for other candidates, and the rest were undecided as Election Day approaches.
It surveyed 608 likely voters from September 13 to 15, 2026, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.97 percentage points. It’s Cooper’s largest lead yet in a Harper Polling survey. He led by 13 points in the pollster’s survey from August, 52 percent to 39 percent, and 11 points in May, 50 percent to 39 percent.
Cooper led by 8 points in March, 9 points in November 2025 and 4 points in September 2024. Cooper is viewed more favorably than Whatley, and North Carolina voters are generally less familiar with Whatley, according to the poll. Favorable views of Cooper stood at 47 percent, while 43 percent viewed him negatively, the poll found.
Meanwhile, 26 percent of voters viewed Whatley favorably, while 42 percent viewed the Republican unfavorably. The poll comes after Trump campaigned with Whatley in North Carolina this week. He held a rally for Whatley in Gastonia, a city of more than 80,000 people about 20 miles west of Charlotte.
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