GREENVILLE, N.C. — President Donald Trump’s political groups aren’t spending money here to help his chosen Senate candidate. Other national Republican groups have effectively given up on the high-profile race in a state Trump won three times.
But Trump is still due to visit here Tuesday night to rally with Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee, who is trailing his opponent, Democratic former governor Roy Cooper. It’s the latest instance of the president lending his time — if not his money — to try to boost turnout among his supporters for candidates he personally likes.
No Republican candidate in this election cycle is more a creation of Trump’s than Whatley, who was the chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 2024 campaign and, before that, the chair of the North Carolina Republican Party who boosted Trump’s 2020 stolen-election claims.
Trump endorsed Whatley for Senate ahead of the Republican primary, and Whatley in return has fully embraced Trump during the campaign — a stark contrast with outgoing GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, who has long publicly critiqued Trump and his policies.
On Monday, Whatley appeared with Vice President JD Vance at a rally in the mountain town of Hendersonville, where Republicans are fighting to hold a competitive House seat. Trump’s rally in Greenville is designed to boost Whatley as well as the Republican House candidate in the nearby 1st Congressional District, which Republicans in the legislature redrew this year to make it more GOP-friendly.
Despite the gerrymander, the incumbent Democrat is polling neck and neck with his GOP challenger, Laurie Buckhout.
Trump says that his rallies “are having a huge impact” on Republicans’ election prospects. On Monday as he left to campaign in Kansas, he dismissed as “rigged” and “fake” the surveys showing Republican candidates running behind, and said Democrats are “getting their asses kicked.”
In North Carolina, early-voting data — and not just public opinion polls — has shown Democrats with an advantage so far. Turnout overall is running ahead of the same point in 2022 and 2018, and voting among registered Democrats has outpaced that of Republicans.
Both Whatley and Cooper have argued that the race will tighten closer to Election Day, even as polling has consistently shown Cooper in the lead.
Whatley is being vastly outspent on ads in the final stretch of the campaign, after national Republicans effectively cut off spending in recent weeks.
This week, Cooper reported significantly outraising and outspending Whatley in the third quarter, having $12.4 million cash on hand going into October, compared with Whatley’s $916,000.
As of Tuesday, Whatley’s campaign had no advertisements booked, while Cooper’s campaign has $7.5 million in ads reserved through Election Day, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. Senate Democrats’ top super PAC has reserved another $7 million in ads for Cooper, compared with a remaining $2.5 million in super PAC spending on the Republican side.
Beyond ads, Paul Shumaker, a longtime Republican strategist in the state who advises Tillis, said an effective get-out-the-vote operation is the GOP’s only hope of closing the gap.
“To fix the Republican turnout problem in North Carolina, there needs to be a massive infusion of cash for Michael Whatley for turnout of the Republican base,” Shumaker said.
A recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found Trump’s approval rating at an all-time low of 33 percent nationwide, but 38 percent among likely voters. Democrats, for the first time in more than a decade, were seen as more trusted to deal with the economy.
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