The announcement this past weekend from Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina that he will not seek re-election is renewing the focus on a Senate race that was poised to be one of the two top contests on the 2026 midterm map.
For months, Democrats were eager to run against Mr. Tillis, who was being squeezed from both the political left and right as he sought to navigate life as a battleground-state senator with President Trump in the White House.
Officials in both parties acknowledged that Mr. Tillis was in a weakened political state. He won his last re-election in 2020 only after his Democratic opponent was engulfed in an extramarital sexting scandal, and he has long had an arms-length relationship with the Trump base of his party.
In recent months, several North Carolina Republicans have inquired about either mounting a primary challenge to Mr. Tillis or seeking the nomination with the expectation that the senator would not run again.
Democrats, for the most part, have yielded to their expected front-runner, former Gov. Roy Cooper, who left office at the start of this year. During his farewell address to the state in December, he pointedly declared: “I’m not done.”
Here are four key questions about North Carolina’s Senate race.
Will former Gov. Roy Cooper run?
Mr. Cooper is by far the most popular Democrat in North Carolina. He is undefeated as a statewide candidate, having won four elections as attorney general and two as governor. In 2012, Republicans did not even bother to put up a candidate against Mr. Cooper.
No other Democrats running or in consideration can match the name recognition or the fund-raising ability of Mr. Cooper, a former chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.
Former Representative Wiley Nickel, who served one term before his district was redrawn by North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature, announced in April that he would seek the seat.
Since leaving office in January, Mr. Cooper has taught a class at Harvard’s public health school, where Republicans had a tracker follow him with a camera and sit in on some classes.
He has said for months that he will announce a decision on the Senate race this summer. On Monday, Mr. Cooper’s political adviser, Morgan Jackson, said he “continues to strongly consider a run for the Senate and will decide in the coming weeks.”
Will there be a messy Republican primary now?
Not if the party can help it.
While Mr. Trump has so far avoided picking a candidate in Republican primaries in Michigan and Texas, party officials hope — and believe — he will anoint someone as his choice in North Carolina.
Republicans to watch so far include Michael Whatley, who has won Mr. Trump’s endorsement before, when he became the Republican National Committee chairman; Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, who weighed a Senate run in North Carolina in 2022 and who was briefly in the mix to replace Marco Rubio in Florida when he was named secretary of state; and members of the state’s congressional delegation, in particular Representatives Richard Hudson and Pat Harrigan.
It is unlikely that any of those four will run against a Trump-endorsed primary candidate. Mr. Whatley is considered to be the party’s early front-runner. Party officials are skeptical that Ms. Trump, having passed on two opportunities to seek a Senate seat, will do so now. She recently signed deals to host a weekend show on Fox News and to contribute to Salem Media, the conservative radio network.
Will Tillis’s decision change the race?
Probably not all that much.
Mr. Tillis was already considered to be one of the two most endangered Senate Republicans, along with Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who has weathered being a top Democratic target before. Now Republicans are likely to have a candidate who has not drawn the anger of the party base like Mr. Tillis, but will also come without his track record of winning and statewide name recognition.
“President Trump has won North Carolina three times, and the state has been represented by two Republican senators for over a decade,” said Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm. “That streak will continue in 2026.”
Will North Carolina matter in the fight for the Senate majority?
Democrats must win the state if they have any hope of seizing a majority in the chamber after the midterm elections. Republicans now hold 53 seats, and Vice President JD Vance holds the tiebreaking vote, so Democrats would need to flip at least four seats in 2026 to take control.
If the party held its battleground seats in Georgia and Michigan, it would most likely have to win North Carolina, Maine and then two other red states. Some Republicans have begun to worry about Texas, especially if the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, beats Senator John Cornyn in the primary.
After that, the party would need to cash a lottery ticket somewhere like Alaska, Iowa, Mississippi or Nebraska — all long shots, even in a year in which Democrats are on offense against Mr. Trump and Republicans.
Reid J. Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining The Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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