Jessi Rae Morton, News Editor 

The 2026 midterm election season promises to be an intense one in many ways. All members of the U.S. House of Representatives and one third of seats in the Senate will be on the ballot in November 2026, along with a wide range of state and local positions. One of the most watched races is likely to be the North Carolina U.S. Senate race, which is already shaping up to be very expensive. 

The March 3rd primary determined who will be on the November ballot for North Carolina’s open Senate seat. North Carolina has “semi-closed” primary elections. According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections, this means that voters who are registered as Republicans, may only vote the Republican primary ballot, and voters who are registered as Democrats may only vote the Democratic primary ballot. Voters who are registered as “unaffiliated” may choose one primary in which to participate. 

In the primary, former Governor Roy Cooper easily secured the Democratic nomination with about 92% of votes, according to The Associated Press. The Republican nomination was slightly more competitive, but Michael Whatley secured the nomination with over 64% of votes.  

This particular Senate race is considered an open race; neither candidate is an incumbent. Instead, they are competing for the seat of Senator Thom Tillis who announced his retirement last year. According to reporting by Nadine Yousif for BBC News, Tillis’s decision came shortly after he was one of only two Republican senators to vote against the 2025 “One Big Beautiful Bill” budget. Tillis’s vote against the bill prompted President Trump to threaten to “back another candidate in the Republican primary ahead of [the 2026] midterm elections, saying he would be meeting with “numerous” contenders to challenge Tillis.” 

Prior to the March 3rd primary, Roy Cooper was polling favorably, and Cooper also “broke fundraising records in his first 24 hours as a Senate candidate,” as reported by Politico in July 2025. However, several of the available polls fall within the margin of error, and at the time of this writing, no polls have come out since the primary election. Additionally, the race is expected to be extremely expensive. According to Politico, “National and North Carolina strategists from both parties said the race […] could be one of the costliest Senate races in the 2026 midterms, topping out at $650 to $800 million, according to private estimates described by both parties.” 

High-level spending has already begun, as Alec Hernandez reported for Politico in February 2026. “Americans for Prosperity Action, the political arm of the powerful conservative Koch network, has placed a 7-figure ad buy for former RNC Chair Michael Whatley’s Senate campaign in North Carolina.” The ad buy of over $1 million included cable TV, internet connected TV services, and Meta platforms. 

In terms of statewide races, North Carolina is a particularly interesting case. As Hernandez explains, “Democrats haven’t won a Senate race or carried the state at the presidential level since 2008 — but Democrats have been inching closer to cinching a statewide federal win in past cycles after posting two consecutive Democrats to the governor’s mansion and maintaining a longtime hold on the attorney general’s office in Raleigh.” 

Roy Cooper is, of course, one of those democratic governors, and he has not lost an election in his political career so far. Michael Whatley, on the other hand, has never held a publicly elected office. But Whatley is a former Republican National Committee chairman and has been endorsed by President Trump. Whatley served as deputy assistant secretary of the Department of Energy under George W. Bush, and in 2007, he became a partner at the lobbying firm HBW Resources. He held that position until 2019 when he became chair of the North Carolina Republican Party. 

As CNN’s reporting (and many others) have made clear, “Presidents do not have the power to delay or cancel elections.” As Zachary Wolf further explains, “Election Day is set in law, so it is theoretically feasible for Congress to move it, but not to cancel the election. Elections are supposed to be administered by each state, so state governors and legislatures could, in theory, move their own elections to deal with a major disaster, but there’s no precedent for it. To get into the weeds of all of this, read a report from the Congressional Research Service.” 

The 2026 midterm general election will take place on Tuesday, November 3rd, so you all have time to make sure your voter registration is current and plan to vote during early voting or on election day. 

 Headline image from Politico.