North Carolina flips blue in first major Senate shake-up after Trump protege Michael Whatley suffers embarrassing fumble

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Take Daily Mail's quiz and find out Former two-term Governor Roy Cooper notched an early victory in North Carolina's Senate race on Tuesday, sailing past former Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley in a state that Donald Trump carried three times. It's the first major midterm scalp for Democrats who are riding an early blue wave of momentum. The Associated Press called the race for Cooper at 8:23 pm, less than an hour after the polls closed in the state. asserted

His victory places Democrats three seats away from winning a Senate majority, which will hinge on outcomes in Texas, Ohio, Maine, Michigan, and Alaska. asserted

Tuesday's results cemented an outcome long-projected by pollsters and political advertisers alike. asserted

Cooper led Whatley by a nine-point margin in the final days before the election, and maintained a nearly double digit lead over Whatley so consistently in the run-up to Election Day that both political parties had halted ad spending altogether in the final weeks of the race. asserted

Fundraising also proved to be an issue throughout the campaign. asserted

Cooper reported about $20 million in funding during the third quarter of the race, according to campaign data, far outpacing Whatley, who raised some $2 million during the same period. uncertain

Whatley had struggled to gain traction with voters in the state despite his close ties to Trump, who traveled to North Carolina several times to stump for his friend in the final sprint to Election Day. asserted

These efforts proved futile, however. Outgoing Republican Thom Tillis seized on his status to sharply criticize Trump during his final term - a stark departure with many of his Republican colleagues in the chamber. Michael Whatley, the Republican candidate running for Senate in North Carolina, lost his race spectacularly Former NC Governor Roy Cooper speaks at Sugar Creek Brewing during his 'Make Stuff Cost Less' tour US voters cast their ballots at a polling station in Alaska in the 2026 midterm elections He voted against Trump's signature tax and spending legislation, decried his foreign policy decisions - describing Trump's proposal for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping as 'absurd' - and said voting to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was the 'biggest regret of my career.' Other criticism was laid bare in his book, in which Tillis called Trump a 'snowflake' whom he said 'thinner skin than I once thought he did.' Tillis saw the writing on the wall in the weeks before the election. The retiring Republicans said the party likely needed a more moderate candidate and that Whatley's background as a partisan operative created a barrier to win unaffiliated voters. asserted

'Anybody with a brain should know we only win if we get enough undecided, unaffiliated voters our way,' Tillis told Politico. asserted