(The Center Square) – With a quoted “Hey Roy …” on the front of her campaign website, Michele Morrow on Thursday stepped into the race for North Carolina’s U.S. Senate seat.
Her entry comes one day before filing closes, and one day before fellow Republican candidate Michael Whatley welcomes second-term President Donald Trump to Rocky Mount. Morrow was a 2024 candidate for superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction, ultimately losing to Democrat Mo Green 51.2%-48.8%.
The 2026 midterms race to succeed Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is forecast to set Senate campaign spending records in the range of $750 million to $1 billion.
Democrat Roy Cooper, unbeaten statewide in two gubernatorial and four attorney general races, has polled substantially ahead of Whatley since the two announced intentions in the summer. Whatley is the former leader of the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party and already carrying an endorsement from Trump.
In the Democrats’ primary on Super Tuesday, Cooper will be challenged by Concord’s Justin Dean (filed Thursday), High Point’s Orrick Quick (filed Wednesday), Lumberton’s Marcus Williams (filed Friday) and Jacksonville’s Daryl Farrow (filed Dec. 5).
Whatley, from Gastonia, and Morrow, from Cary, are joined in the Grand Old Party primary by Garner’s Thomas Johnson (filed Monday), Charlotte’s Margot Dupre (filed Dec. 11), Waxhaw’s Don Brown (filed Dec. 1), and Smithfield’s Elizabeth Temple (filed Dec. 1).
Libertarians are represented by the Wednesday filing of Angier’s Shannon Bray.
According to Federal Elections Commissions filings through Sept. 30, Morrow enters with just over $800 in cash on hand.
Cooper, at the same time, was at more than $8.5 million and Whatley $1.1 million.
Republicans in statewide races for this decade – 2020, 2022 and 2024 – are 32-10 against Democrats, a party with significantly declining voter registrations for more than 20 consecutive years.
Republicans are 5-for-5 in U.S. Senate races since losing to the late Kay Hagan in 2008. Democrats chase back to 1998 for the last time winning a Senate seat at the midterms.
North Carolinians this year will choose a U.S. senator, all 14 U.S. House representatives, one state Supreme Court judge and three appellate justices. All 170 seats in the General Assembly – 50 in the Senate, 120 in the House of Representatives – are also on the ballot. There are no statewide referenda.
Only presidential cycle years have longer ballots for the more than 7.6 million voters in the nation’s ninth largest state.
