Trump-backed RNC chair jumps into ‘marquee’ Senate race in battleground North Carolina

EXCLUSIVE – GASTONIA, N.C. – Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Michael Whatley made it official on Thursday, as he announced his bid for a GOP-held Senate seat in battleground North Carolina.

Whatley’s campaign launch, at an event in his hometown of Gastonia, N.C., comes a week after President Donald Trump endorsed Whatley and urged him to run.

“President Trump deserves an ally and North Carolina deserves a strong conservative voice in the Senate. I will be that voice,” Whatley emphasized as he spoke in front of a crowd of family, friends, and supporters.

The move by the RNC chair also comes four days after Democrats landed their top Senate recruit of the 2026 cycle to date, as former two-term Gov. Roy Cooper declared his candidacy in the race to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.

Cooper’s campaign launch bolsters the Democrats’ chances of flipping a key GOP-held seat as they try to take a big bite out of the Republicans’ 53-47 Senate majority.

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But Whatley, in his speech, took aim at Cooper, as he tied the former governor to far left figures in the Democratic Party, including New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who is part of the party’s Senate leadership.

“Roy Cooper may pretend to be different from the radical extremists that run today’s Democrat Party, but he is all on their agenda,” Whatley said in his speech.

And in an exclusive national interview with Fox News Digital minutes later, Whatley said you just have to take a look at his record. .. we are going to call him out on his record. These are not just wild suppositions that we’re going to make.”

The showdown in North Carolina between Whatley and Cooper is expected to be one of the most competitive and expensive Senate battles in the country.

Whatley, a North Carolina native, served as the state’s GOP chair for five years before Trump picked him in March of last year to serve as RNC chair.

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Trump called Tillis’ announcement last month that he wouldn’t seek a third six-year term in the Senate “great news.”

Tillis is a GOP critic of the president, and Trump torched the senator last month for not supporting his so-called “big, beautiful” spending and tax cut bill.

After Tillis’ announcement, Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump was at the top of the president’s list for the open seat in the Tar Heel State.

But last week Lara Trump, a North Carolina native who served as RNC co-chair alongside Whatley last year, announced that “after much consideration and heartfelt discussions with my family, friends, and supporters, I have decided not to pursue the United States Senate seat in North Carolina at this time.”

Whatley, who served as chair of the North Carolina GOP before being elected last year as RNC chair, said recently in a Fox News Digital interview that the Senate showdown in the Tar Heel State is “going to be one of the marquee races in the country.”

“I feel very good that we’re going to be able to hold on to that seat,” Whatley predicted. “You know, we’ve been winning in that Senate seat down there for decades. The President has won that state three times in a row.”

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But beating Cooper, who has won statewide six times—four times as attorney general and twice as governor—won’t be easy.

And Cooper’s campaign touted this week that the former governor hauled in a record-breaking $3.4 million in fundraising in the first 24 hours of his campaign.

Democrats took aim at Whatley in advance of his campaign launch.

“Now, Whatley is heading back to North Carolina to sell Trump’s budget betrayal that took health care away from more than 650,000 North Carolinians and spiked costs for working families,” Democratic National Committee communications director Rosemary Boeglin argued in a statement. Trump and Whatley’s toxic agenda will hang around Whatley like an albatross.”

And as Whatley announced his candidacy, the Cooper campaign blasted him.

“Michael Whatley is a D.C. insider and big oil lobbyist who supports policies that are ripping health care away from North Carolinians and raising costs for middle class families,” Cooper campaign manager Jeff Allen charged. “North Carolinians don’t need a lobbyist as their Senator, and voters will have a clear choice between Whatley’s long career as a Beltway insider against Roy Cooper’s record of putting partisanship aside to get results for North Carolina.”