Trump and Vance stumped in NC for Senate candidate Michael Whatley. But did it help his campaign?

A phrase used repeatedly through the years is that “the road to the White House runs through North Carolina.”

But in 2026, the road to control of the U.S. Senate starts in North Carolina, seen by many as the most likely state to flip party control in November.

Which helps explain why President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance visited North Carolina, just five days apart, to stump for Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley.

Whatley, 57, of Gastonia, is facing off against former Gov. Roy Cooper, 69, a Democrat from Raleigh, for North Carolina’s seat in the Senate.

The seat is currently held by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who chose not to seek reelection.

It’s been more than a decade since a Democrat — Kay Hagan — last represented North Carolina in the Senate. But political pundits and analysts have marked North Carolina’s Senate race as the most likely to flip blue.

With Republicans holding just 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats, that’s concerning GOP leaders like Trump, who are potentially facing a Republican White House with a Congress run by Democrats.

And Trump’s presence in North Carolina last week didn’t dissuade groups like the Senate Majority PAC, a group that works to build or maintain a Democratic majority, from feeling good about where the race stands.

“I’d rather be us than them right now,” said Christyna Thompson, a PAC spokeswoman, in a written statement to McClatchy. “Republicans are burning cash to keep Whatley alive while Cooper is running a strong race. Whatley has trailed in poll after poll, gotten lapped in fundraising … ”

She added, “The GOP thought North Carolina was theirs to hold. Now they’re paying just to stay in the race.”

Why Trump came to NC

One of the greatest hurdles for Whatley is his lack of name recognition.

In a recent poll by Carolina Journal, a conservative-leaning news outlet, Cooper was up 15 points, and 32% of likely voters said they had no opinion of Whatley or had never heard of him.

Whatley spent his entire career in politics but often worked behind the scenes, including as an energy lobbyist and chief of staff to Sen. Elizabeth Dole. His two most visible roles were as the state and national party leader. But that only bolstered his profile to very keyed-in Republicans.

And he’s facing off against Cooper, a two-term governor and four-term attorney general with a 40-year political career that also spanned the state House and Senate.

Since both Whatley and Cooper entered the race in July 2025, Cooper has led in every poll publicly released, with anywhere from 1 to 24 points between the two men.

“Michael Whatley’s biggest problem is lack of name recognition,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. “And Donald Trump’s visit was clearly meant to help that problem. The idea was that by Trump coming to North Carolina to benefit Whatley, that we would all say Whatley’s name more, and that he would generate a ton of unpaid and earned media.”

What happened when Trump spoke in Gastonia was more complicated.

Trump’s speech

On stage Sept. 16, Trump reduced North Carolina cities to “blood-soaked killing fields.”

He mispronounced the name of the Catawba tribe and referred to a male political candidate as "she” and “her.”

He praised his administration for immediately working to rebuild Western North Carolina, despite bipartisan pushback, including from Republican Sen. Ted Budd, to now-former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over delays in the release of funds earmarked for relief efforts.

“The reality of what’s happened is the content of Trump’s speech has gotten the lion’s share of the attention more so than what he said about Whatley, which is not going to be useful,” Cooper said. “It was not about Michael Whatley, his policies, or what he can do for North Carolina.”

But none of this, Cooper believes, will affect Whatley’s numbers.

Cooper said the type of people who know about a presidential speech in Gastonia are the exact people who already know who Whatley is.

However, Vance came to Greensboro Monday and appeared to attempt to offset Trump’s darker message. He offered similar talking points, but with a softer tone.

And he pleaded to those still on the fence about whom to vote for, not to send Democrats back to power.

“To anyone who’s still making up their mind, it is very simple,” Vance said. “If you’re unhappy with the pace of progress, don’t hand power back to Democrats who drove our country to the ground in the first place,” he said.

Democrats keyed in to Vance’s presence and what it might mean for Whatley.

“Nobody calls in the Vice President for a race they’re winning,” Thompson said in a news release. “You only call for reinforcements when you don’t have faith in your ability to stand on your own. This administration is so far underwater they’re telling their base everything is fine while they drive the country straight off a cliff.”

But the Republican National Committee saw things very differently.

“After cleaning up the Democrats’ mess, delivering the largest middle-class tax cut in history, and achieving the lowest crime rates in decades, President Trump, Vice President Vance, and cabinet officials have barnstormed North Carolina,” said Emma Hall, RNC spokeswoman.

“Republicans aren’t taking anything for granted and will continue fighting to make the choice clear for North Carolinians this November: Michael Whatley, who will fight for law and order and put more money in families’ pockets, or failed 40-year career politician Roy Cooper, who made North Carolina more expensive and less safe.”

Polling in Cooper-Whatley race

It’s not yet clear from polling how the Trump and Vance visits might have impacted Whatley’s race.

Chris Cooper pointed out there is one key demographic that Republicans could have been trying to sway by bringing the two leaders to the state: undecided Republicans.

An Elon University poll released just prior to Trump’s appearance shows that 91% of Democrats polled said they would vote for Cooper, while 86% of Republicans polled said they would vote for Whatley. The rest of them either intended to support third-party candidates, remained undecided or planned not to vote.

Chris Cooper, who has no relation to Roy Cooper, said Whatley needs to shore up Republican votes.

“He’s not losing those Republicans because he is too MAGA, but in some ways he’s losing them because he’s not MAGA enough or not perceived as MAGA enough,” Cooper said.

On stage before Trump arrived in Gastonia, Whatley concluded his speech saying Trump “is the greatest president of our lifetime.”

Money in the race may not reach predicted levels

As Vance stood on stage Monday afternoon, news broke that Old North Action, a super PAC airing ads in the North Carolina Senate race, had canceled $6.5 million of its $20 million in ad reservations, Semafor first reported.

Several news outlets have reported that more cuts could be coming to North Carolina campaign spending.

Up until Tillis pulled out of the race at the end of June 2025, North Carolina was expected to be headed for the most expensive Senate race in history.

It happened in Tillis’ first race for the seat in 2014. It happened again in 2020 when Tillis ran against lawyer and former state Sen. Cal Cunningham in a race that cost close to $300 million.

Political analysts, and even Tillis, believed the 2026 race against Cooper would cost no less than $500 million and could go closer to $1 billion.

But then came Whatley.

“Right now it appears we’re not going to get anywhere close to the $1 billion race that you were teased with back in January,” Chris Cooper said. “That’s not happening.”

He said it’s not that the Republicans aren’t supporting Whatley. They’ve actually committed more money to the race than Democrats.

But he questions for how much longer.

“Polls continue to show Roy Cooper up by 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 points,” Chris Cooper said. “Is there a point where the Republicans are going to pull out, particularly when we’re getting more and more polling showing (Democratic candidate) James Talarico may actually be up or at the very least, extremely competitive in Texas? You can copy-and-paste the same thing in Iowa, in Alaska, in Maine, in Ohio — in these kinds of places where money may go far.”

Cooper said he doesn’t expect a complete withdrawal from the race by Republicans, but a period of time when the massive influx of money stops, or slows, and shifts to be spent on races in other states.

And he believes that moment could come soon.

_____