Scoop: Roy Cooper leans toward N.C. Senate bid, potential Trump showdown
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Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, in Raleigh, United States on November 4, 2024. Photo by Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)
North Carolina Democrats are getting closer to the gift they've have been asking for all year, with former Gov. Roy Cooper (D) leaning toward a Senate run in the state President Trump has won three times.
Why it matters: The field is essentially frozen until Cooper and Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, decide if they want to be their party's nominees.
- In their own way, they both have the "right of first refusal" in their party's primaries.
What they're saying: "Governor Cooper continues to strongly consider a run for the Senate and will decide in the coming weeks," said Morgan Jackson, Cooper's top political adviser told Axios.
- "I'm considering it," Lara Trump told Fox News Radio on Monday.
- "This is all kind of fresh within the past 24 hours for me," she said.
- "North Carolina is my home state. It's where I was born and raised. It made me the person I am today."
Driving the news: In a surprise Sunday move, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced in the middle of Senate negotiations over the one "big, beautiful bill," that he would not be seeking a third term.
- "In Washington over the last few years, it's become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species," Tillis said.
- One longtime Senate Democratic donor told Axios that they expect Cooper to hop in the race after Tillis' retirement.
Zoom out: Even before his announcement, Democrats viewed North Carolina as their best opportunity to chip away at the GOP's 3-seat Senate majority in the 2026 midterms.
- Tillis had shown a willingness, on a few issues, to buck the president, feeding suspicions in the MAGA base that wasn't on team Trump.
- In 2023 the state party formally censured him.
Zoom in: Lara Trump, a former RNC vice chair, could rely on the president to clear the field and avoid the messy GOP infighting from some of North Carolina's recent open statewide primaries.
- National and state Democrats would likely make it clear to any other potential candidates that if Cooper runs, they should exit the race.
- Former Rep. Wiley Nickel, who served for one term before Republicans redrew his seat before the 2024 election, announced a Senate bid in April.
- Three freshman congressmen, Reps. Pat Harrigan, Tim Moore and Brad Knott, could jump into the race on the Republican side if Lara Trump passed.
