NC Senate · 2026
Democrats have a slight edge to win this seat
51% probability
Candidates
Last verified 2026-11-02.
Roy Asberry Cooper III is an American politician and lawyer who was the 75th governor of North Carolina from 2017 to 2025.
Michael David Whatley is an American politician and lawyer who was chair of the Republican National Committee from 2024 to 2025.
Open seat -- the current officeholder is a Republican, who is not running.
Not applicable to this race: Candidate fundraising split (state filings), State campaign finance data available · Built on annual structural data, current release 2026-05-29: State mood: Domestic Stability, State mood: Isolation. See /status for current data freshness.
Fundraising as of 2026-10-14 (FEC filings).
Why we think this
- This state's baseline partisan lean favors Democrats by about 3 points of margin before anything else is considered.
- This is an open seat: the current officeholder (a Republican) is not on the ballot, which tends to make the race more competitive than a defended seat.
- Separately, current public mood in this state specifically is shifting significantly toward Republicans, on top of the structural baseline.
- Independently, the national midterm environment is shifting every race this cycle significantly toward Democrats -- a separate, nationwide force layered on top of the state-specific factors above, not a restatement of them.
Model details -- coefficients, calibration, and the full technical decomposition.
Model sengov-2026-govmoney-v2 · computed 2026-11-09