(The Center Square) – Roy Cooper’s U.S. Senate campaign in North Carolina is getting an $11 million injection from the Senate Majority PAC, the donor said Thursday morning.
The funding, pushing to $42 million this year’s push in the battleground state, will go toward television advertising in the 11.2 million population state. Cooper, the Democrats’ candidate, is trying to reverse longtime federal voting trends in the state and defeat Republican Michael Whatley and Libertarian Shannon Bray on Nov. 3.
Early voting ballots go into the mail in 44 days, or six weeks from Friday. Election Day is 104 days away.
Senate Majority PAC is the super political action committee for Democrats. It is not the colloquially known dark money, though 501(c)(4) organizations that donate can remain hidden and some are known by that moniker.
Senate Majority PAC’s top donors include Majority Forward, Democracy PAC, multiple labor unions, Chicago media executive Fred Eychaner, Connecticut hedge fund manager Stephen Mandel and San Francisco consultant Michelle Chan.
The fall ads will attack Whatley’s support of tariffs; military strikes by America and Israel against Iran, trying to keep an atomic weapon out of the Middle Eastern country’s assets; and what Senate Majority PAC calls “the largest cut to Medicaid in history.”
Cooper has led in the polling and the campaign donations since he and Whatley declared intent officially a year ago on July 28 and 31, respectively. Whatley trails significantly in name recognition more than 11 months later.
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.
