Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper holds a 53, 44 percent lead over Republican Michael Whatley in the state's open Senate race, buoyed by a Democratic enthusiasm edge that could threaten GOP hopes of holding the seat.
The Fox News poll, conducted July 23, 27 among 1,005 registered voters statewide, lands 100 days before the midterm elections and captures a race where Cooper's advantages extend well beyond the top-line number. More Democrats than Republicans say they are extremely interested in the midterms, 51 percent versus 42 percent, and more Democrats say they are extremely motivated to vote, 58 percent to 50 percent.
Those enthusiasm gaps translate directly into the ballot test. Among voters who describe themselves as extremely interested in the election, Cooper leads by 15 points, 57 to 42. Among those who say they are extremely motivated to vote, he leads by 13, 55 to 42. Even among voters who say they are "certain" to cast a ballot, the margin holds steady at 53, 44.
For Republicans trying to hold the seat that retiring Senator Thom Tillis currently occupies, the numbers point to a problem that runs deeper than name recognition or messaging. Whatley, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, carries a 40 percent favorable rating. Fourteen percent of voters cannot rate him or have never heard of him, and that includes roughly one in ten Republicans.
Cooper's 54 percent favorability puts him 12 points ahead of the Democratic Party's own standing in North Carolina. Whatley, by contrast, runs four points behind the Republican Party's favorability. In a state where both parties are underwater, the GOP at 44 percent favorable and 54 percent unfavorable, Democrats at 42 percent favorable and 56 percent unfavorable, the candidate who can separate himself from his party label has a structural advantage.
Cooper has done exactly that. Among voters who view both parties negatively, he draws 64 percent support to Whatley's 32 percent. That two-to-one margin among the most disaffected slice of the electorate is the kind of crossover performance that wins statewide races in purple states.
The former governor's appeal stretches into territory Republicans need. He wins high support from moderates, voters under 30, independents, and college-educated voters. He also pulls roughly one in five non-MAGA Republicans and conservatives, a crossover rate that erodes the base Whatley needs to assemble.
North Carolina's split political personality makes those crossover numbers matter. Republicans have won the state in 11 of the last 12 presidential elections. But Democrats have won eight of the last ten gubernatorial races. Cooper himself won reelection as governor in 2020 by nearly five points, and Just The News reported that he entered the Senate race with a 13, 0 record across multiple statewide offices.
One of the sharpest contrasts in the poll involves voter motivation. Eighty-four percent of Cooper's supporters say they are voting for him, not against Whatley. Only 13 percent describe their vote as primarily anti-Whatley. And 81 percent of Cooper's backers say they are certain to stick with him.
Whatley's coalition looks different. Just 52 percent of his supporters say they are voting for him. Forty-six percent say their vote is mainly against Cooper. And 77 percent say they are certain to stay with their pick. When nearly half a candidate's support is driven by opposition to the other side rather than affirmative enthusiasm, that support is softer and harder to mobilize on Election Day.
Overall, one in five voters say they could still switch their choice, a reminder that 100 days is a long time. But the enthusiasm gap and the motivation gap both favor Cooper at this stage.
The trend lines from earlier this cycle reinforce the picture. A Carolina Journal poll reported by Newsmax in March showed Cooper ahead 49 to 41, with his lead growing slightly from a November survey that had him up 47, 39. North Carolina has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Kay Hagan won in 2008, making the seat one of the party's top pickup targets as Democrats try to claw back a Senate majority.
President Trump won North Carolina by three points in 2024. But his favorability among the state's voters has deteriorated sharply since then. The Fox News poll puts Trump at 40 percent favorable and 58 percent unfavorable, a net negative of 18 points. Two years ago, he was underwater by just six points, at 47, 53.
That 12-point swing matters because Whatley's ties to Trump are a live issue in the race. Forty-eight percent of voters say those ties concern them. That includes more than half of moderates, more than four in ten independents, and about three in ten non-MAGA Republicans. Whatley received Trump's endorsement for the seat, as National Review noted when covering his campaign kickoff last year, and his tenure as RNC chairman makes the association impossible to shed.
Cooper carries his own baggage. Forty-two percent of voters say they are concerned about his ties to the Democratic establishment, including seven in ten Republicans, three in ten independents, and three in ten moderates. But that number is six points lower than the share concerned about Whatley's Trump connection, and Cooper's crossover appeal suggests the Democratic-establishment label has less bite in this particular matchup.
Trump's endorsement has been a powerful asset in Republican primaries across the country, helping candidates like Julia Letlow clinch the Louisiana GOP Senate nomination. But in a general election in a state where the president's approval has dropped 12 net points in two years, that endorsement becomes a heavier weight to carry.
North Carolina voters rank inflation as the top issue driving their Senate vote, at 36 percent. Political divisions within the country come next at 14 percent, followed by healthcare and immigration tied at 13 percent each.
Republicans typically benefit when inflation dominates the issue landscape, and the cost-of-living squeeze is real. Thirty-eight percent of voters say they are falling behind financially, while 50 percent describe their situation as stable and 12 percent say they are getting ahead. The share saying they are falling behind has actually dropped six points from two years ago, but it remains the single largest source of economic anxiety.
Yet Cooper leads despite inflation sitting at the top of the issue list. That disconnect suggests voters are not automatically blaming Democrats for price pressures, or that Cooper's personal brand is strong enough to override the party's economic liabilities. Either way, the Republican argument that kitchen-table economics will carry the day has not yet broken through in this race.
Democrats are spending accordingly. The Washington Examiner reported that the Senate Majority PAC injected an additional $11 million into the North Carolina contest, pushing total Democratic investment past $42 million. That kind of money signals that national Democrats view the seat as genuinely winnable, and that they are not taking Cooper's lead for granted.
Republicans, meanwhile, face broader challenges in holding their Senate majority. The Fox News power rankings list four Senate seats as toss-ups and 16 House seats in the same category, and fractures within both parties have complicated the midterm map for each side.
Daron Shaw, the Republican pollster who co-directs the Fox News survey with Democrat Chris Anderson, offered a blunt assessment of what Whatley needs to do.
"Recent data put the average Republican advantage in North Carolina statewide races at about 3 points. Cooper's edge rests on almost unanimous Democratic support and commanding numbers among independents. To win, Whatley must stop the bleeding with non-MAGA Republicans and improve his standing with disaffected, less partisan Carolinians."
Shaw's prescription, stop the bleeding, acknowledges that the current trajectory favors Cooper. But the race is not over. Immigration remains a vulnerability for the former governor. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Cooper's campaign refused to address a December 2025 stabbing on Charlotte's light rail by a twice-deported illegal immigrant, instead issuing a boilerplate attack on Whatley. Cooper vetoed a bill during his time as governor that would have required state sheriffs to cooperate with ICE, and North Carolina's illegal immigrant population grew by 100,000 between 2021 and 2023 on his watch.
Whatley has tried to press that opening. He accused Cooper of "looking the other way on crime" and pointed to Cooper's executive order on pretrial release and cashless bail as creating "a revolving door which has put these violent criminals back on the streets again, and again, and again." Whether those attacks gain traction with the moderates and independents Whatley needs remains the central question of the next 100 days.
Internal GOP tensions over legislative strategy add another layer of difficulty. Whatley must run on a Republican record that satisfies the party's base without alienating the swing voters Shaw identified as essential.
The poll's margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points, meaning the race could be as close as six points or as wide as twelve. But every indicator in the survey, enthusiasm, motivation, favorability, crossover appeal, and voter certainty, points in the same direction. Cooper leads, and he leads for reasons that are structural, not fleeting.
One hundred days is enough time for a race to shift. It is not enough time for a candidate to reinvent himself. Whatley needs to give North Carolina voters a reason to vote for him, not just against the other side, and so far, his own poll numbers say he has not found one.