Where the Cooper-Whatley race really stands
A ton of polls hit last week. On the surface, they look all over the place. Underneath, they’re telling a pretty consistent story.
Now that we’re past the primary, we got a blitz of polls over the past week gauging the U.S. Senate race between former Gov. Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Whatley.
At first glance, they seem to be all over the place:
PPP: Cooper 47, Whatley 44, undecided 9 (Cooper + 3)
Carolina Journal: Cooper 49, Whatley 41, other 4, undecided 6 (Cooper + 8)
Quantus Insights: Cooper 48.6, Whatley 43.8, other 1.9, undecided 5.7 (Cooper + 5)
Healthier United: Cooper 50, Whatley 32, Shannon Bray 4, undecided 14 (Cooper +18)
Catawba College: Cooper 48, Whatley 34, undecided 14 (Cooper + 14)
As I’ve written before, poll reading is as much art as it is science. We know Cooper is ahead. But is he up three, or is he up 18?
I think the answer is that the polls look more different than they really are, and the biggest reason is how they treat undecided voters.
Some pollsters push respondents harder. They ask leaners where they are leaning and try to force a softer choice. Others cast a wider net and allow a much broader undecided bucket. People are much more likely to tell a pollster they are “unsure” than they are to walk into the voting booth with no real preference at all. That’s especially true when they may have never heard of one of the candidates.
Obviously, Whatley is going to get more than 32 percent of the vote. We learned in 2024 exactly where the floor is for a statewide Republican candidate’s support, and it’s at 40%. Whatley is not Mark Robinson.
So the question is not whether Whatley gets off the floor. He will. The question is how high he gets.
Plenty of right-leaning unaffiliateds will come home once the race is better defined. Some will not. A lot of them just won’t vote at all.
Then you have unaffiliated voters who are just alienated and unhappy with both parties. That’s why I think polls that do not ask about Libertarian Shannon Bray are missing something crucial. In a pessimistic electorate, a small protest vote is more likely to be meaningful.
Then there is turnout. Trump is not on the ballot and turnout is going to be a problem for Republicans.
Cooper isn’t going to win many actual Trump voters, but he does not need to. If a chunk of softer Trump voters are unengaged in a non-presidential race and stay home, that has basically the same effect. In other words, Whatley’s risk is not really mass crossover. It is drop-off.
The question is not whether Republican voters prefer him to Cooper. Of course they do. The question is whether enough of them are engaged enough to show up when Trump himself is not on the ballot.
The history points in the same direction.
North Carolina Senate races are usually close, or at least close-ish.
U.S. Sen. Ted Budd won 50.5 to 47.25 in 2022
Sen. Thom Tillis won 48.7 to 47 in 2020.
Former Sen. Richard Burr won 51-45 in 2016.
Tillis won 49-47 in 2014.
Burr won 55-43 in 2010.
Even clear wins here usually happen in the low 50s, not the mid-50s.
That is why I do not think a 55-40 type result is the likeliest read of this race.
The closer analogue is something like former Sen. Kay Hagan’s 52.6 to 44 win in 2008 against former Sen. Elizabeth Dole. You’ve got a Democrat with a favorable environment, a Republican who is not collapsing but still cannot quite get where they need to be, and a result that is clear without being apocalyptic.
I’m not doing any statistical analysis of these polls. I’m not building a model. I’m just looking at the data we have, how unaffiliateds tend to behave, what turnout may look like without Trump on the ballot, and the basic history of U.S. Senate races in this state.
And if I had to guess, if the election were held today, I’d put it at:
Cooper 52
Whatley 45
Bray 3
That is my read of where the Cooper-Whatley race really stands.
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While I typically agree with your sound political analysis, in this article you have failed to account for important factors that help decipher and apply these polls to project the actual (likely) separation between the two major party candidates. Factors what will make a significant difference include- (1) Cooper is much more accomplished in reaching voters and winning moderates to his camp; (2) Whatley is inextricably tied to Thom Tillis, his mentor, and a reviled senior senator whom Whatley hopes to replace, which will suppress Republican turnout; (3) Whatley is seriously inexperienced in campaigning having never run for public office while Cooper has never been beaten in many statewide campaigns; (4) Historically, out-of-state money from the left will outpace GOP fundraising by as much as 3:1 and Whatley does not have the track record of being a strong fundraiser; (5) There are several other competitive but more winnable Senate races around the country that will compel national funding over the one in NC; (6) Whatley's failure to help Western NC as Trump's "Czar" for Helene Relief will be his "Achilles heel" in the all-important Western NC counties, who normally are a strength for GOP candidates; (7) The polling trend at the moment is moving more in Cooper's favor- the latest two showing Cooper up double digits and gaining strength; and (8) Trump is not on the ballot to help shore up support from MAGA voters. We still have six months of campaign posturing to play out, but the current glideslope points to a remarkably embarrassing outcome for this Senate race in November- perhaps 15-20 points separation. You are correct in assessing that Michael Whatley is not Mark Robinson. Robinson was an aggressive campaigner, had already won one statewide campaign, and excited his base. Whatley cannot lay claim to any of those accomplishments.
Great and thorough analysis!