US SENATE

NOTE: You may vote for one. Candidates are presented below in the order they appear on your ballot. All of my research sources and links for these candidates are presented after and below the candidate profiles.

Reason for my Endorsement:

While Dublin aligns more closely with pure progressive ideals on paper, during his two terms as Governor, Cooper has very effectively used his veto power as a “defensive wall” against a conservative supermajority state legislature. He consistently fought for public school funding, vetoed stringent abortion restrictions, and successfully expanded Medicaid. Bray’s record contains some clear continuities. But his policy positions have not remained consistent. Whatley has never held elective office, so there is no legislative voting record to examine. But he has had access, influence and institutional authority. Whatley’s campaign makes his political alignment unusually explicit: he is running to enact Donald Trump’s agenda.

MICHAEL DUBLIN (Green Party)

WHO IS MICHAEL DUBLIN?

Michael Dublin is a Wake County native, NC State graduate, recently retired public school teacher and longtime community activist. He taught for nearly 25 years, spent more than two decades doing volunteer prison ministry, is a veteran, and serves as co-chair of the Black Caucus of the North Carolina Green Party.

This isn’t his first run for office. Dublin was the Green Party candidate for North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District in 2024. His political involvement goes back much further. Dublin says he joined the NAACP as a young man in the 1970s and has been involved in social, political and environmental causes since the early 1980s, describing himself as a longtime “boot on the ground and a voice in the street.” That activism continues through such projects as “Trails of Justice,” community walks sponsored by the Green Party’s Black Caucus that combine environmental justice, Black history, climate-resilient neighborhoods and community organizing.

WHY GREEN? WHY SENATE?

Dublin grew up a Democrat. He says his grandmother made sure the family understood and participated in politics, while an uncle returning from Vietnam helped shape his early skepticism about war. Over time he became increasingly dissatisfied with Democrats over war, universal health care, and racial and economic justice and eventually moved to the Green Party. Dublin says he’s running for Senate because neither major party adequately represents working people and both are too heavily influenced by corporate money. His campaign is built around “People, Planet, and Progress” and the Green Party focus on democracy, ecology, social justice and peace.

WHERE DOES DUBLIN STAND?

Among Dublin’s proposals are:

Medicare for All and cancellation of medical debt.
A Green New Deal, an end to new oil and gas drilling, and public ownership of major polluting companies.
A moratorium on new data centers.
Universal rent control and a major expansion of publicly owned affordable housing.
Abolishing ICE and ending immigrant detention and deportations.

Peace and opposition to U.S. military intervention are longstanding parts of Dublin’s politics. During his 2024 congressional campaign he identified Gaza as a top priority. His current campaign calls for reducing military spending and redirecting federal resources to housing, health care and education. On February 28, 2026, he condemned U.S.-Israeli military action against Iran and argued that the president lacked congressional authorization.

ROY COOPER (Democrat)

https://roycooper.com/

WHO IS ROY COOPER?

Roy Cooper is one of North Carolina’s most familiar political figures. A Nash County native and UNC-Chapel Hill graduate, Cooper practiced law in Rocky Mount before beginning a public career that has now spanned nearly four decades. He served in the North Carolina House and Senate, including as Senate majority leader; was elected Attorney General four times; and served two terms as Governor from 2017 through 2024.

There is also a less political Cooper biography. His mother was a public-school teacher, his father farmed and practiced law, and Cooper worked summers on the family farm. He returned to Nash County after law school, where he and his wife Kristin raised three daughters. For years he taught Sunday School and tutored students in local public schools.

HOW DID COOPER DEAL WITH A REPUBLICAN LEGISLATURE?

Health Care

One of Cooper’s most consequential fights as governor was Medicaid expansion. For years Cooper pushed North Carolina to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act while Republican legislative leaders opposed it. In 2023, the two sides finally reached an agreement, and Cooper signed bipartisan Medicaid expansion into law. Today approximately 740,000 North Carolinians receive health coverage through Medicaid expansion.

Cooper’s administration also started a medical-debt relief program that offered hospitals enhanced Medicaid payments in exchange for relieving existing medical debt for eligible low- and middle-income patients and adopting policies intended to prevent new debt. The program has since erased more than $6.5 billion in medical debt for more than 2.5 million North Carolinians.

Public Schools

Cooper pushed repeatedly for higher teacher pay and greater public-school funding while opposing expansion of taxpayer funded private school vouchers. In his final proposed state budget, Cooper called for an average 8.5 percent teacher raise, more than $1 billion in public-school investments, and a moratorium on further expansion of private school vouchers.

Abortion, LGBTQ+ Issues and Parents’ Rights

Cooper also used the governor’s veto in several of North Carolina’s largest social-policy fights. In 2023 he vetoed the legislature’s 12-week abortion law and separately vetoed bills restricting gender-affirming care for minors, regulating transgender participation in school sports, and establishing a “Parents’ Bill of Rights.” Republican legislative supermajorities later overrode those vetoes.

HURRICANE HELENE RELIEF & RECOVERY

Cooper was governor when Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina in September 2024. His administration coordinated the state’s emergency response and requested the federal major disaster declaration that opened FEMA assistance to affected communities. On October 3, Cooper visited Watauga, Ashe and Avery counties, meeting with residents and community and business leaders about relief and recovery efforts.

After state officials estimated Helene’s damage and recovery needs at more than $53 billion, Cooper led a delegation to Washington seeking $25.57 billion in federal assistance for Western North Carolina. The federal government later agreed to cover 90 percent of eligible Public Assistance recovery costs rather than the usual 75 percent. The recovery also became politically contentious. Cooper argued that the General Assembly was not providing enough state money for Western North Carolina, while Republican legislators criticized his administration’s management of ReBuild NC, the state’s long-running recovery program for earlier hurricanes.

WHY IS HE RUNNING FOR SENATE?

Cooper’s 2026 Senate campaign has centered heavily on affordability under the deliberately plainspoken banner “Make Stuff Cost Less.” His proposals include increased antitrust enforcement in food markets, changes in federal tax policy to help families with childcare costs, incentives for additional housing construction, restrictions on large investment firms buying single-family homes, and measures intended to keep data-center electricity costs from being shifted to residential customers.

On health care, Cooper points to North Carolina’s Medicaid expansion and medical-debt program as evidence of what he is able to accomplish by building coalitions. He says he wants to lower premiums and prescription drug costs and protect federal health-care coverage.

KEY ENDORSEMENTS

North Carolina State AFL-CIO: labor and workers’ rights.
Human Rights Campaign PAC: LGBTQ+ rights.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund: reproductive rights.
League of Conservation Voters Action Fund: environmental and clean-energy policy.

THE POLITICAL OPERATION AROUND COOPER

Longtime Cooper political adviser Morgan Jackson, co-founder of the Raleigh consulting and public-affairs firm Nexus Strategies, helped direct Cooper’s gubernatorial campaigns and remains involved in his current Senate campaign. That network has sometimes caused friction within the Democratic Party. In 2022, after Cooper endorsed Val Applewhite in a Democratic state Senate primary against incumbent Kirk deViere, Nexus stopped working for deViere and worked for Applewhite. DeViere and some other Democrats portrayed the episode as evidence that Cooper’s political network wielded too much influence. Jackson and Cooper allies disputed broader claims of improper influence.

SHANNON W. BRAY (Libertarian)

Shannon W. Bray Facebook

WHO IS SHANNON BRAY?

Shannon Bray is running for the U.S. Senate for the third time, after Senate campaigns in 2020 and 2022 and campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor in 2024. Before entering politics, Bray had a long career in technology, including service in the U.S. Navy, software and systems work, teaching computer science, cybersecurity and systems architecture. He also co-authored technical books on Microsoft SharePoint. That background shows up repeatedly in his politics.

Bray tends to approach government as a systems architect might: What is the system supposed to do? Where can it fail? Who has authority to change it? And can someone independently verify what happened? Bray puts it more simply than I did: “Government should be auditable by the people it serves.” His proposals on elections, privacy and government records repeatedly emphasize verification, accountability and limiting unauthorized access to information. His health-care writing similarly asks not simply whether people have insurance but whether they can obtain treatment and experience better outcomes.

WHERE DOES BRAY STAND ON ABORTION?

In 2019, Bray said government should not tell a woman what she could do with her body. In 2020, he explicitly described himself as pro-choice and said a woman should have complete decision-making power over her body. By 2022, his answer had changed. Asked what federal abortion legislation he supported, Bray answered: “None; leave it to the states.” While running for governor in 2024, he went further, supporting North Carolina’s ability to impose a gestational abortion limit of approximately 16 weeks, with medical exceptions. His current 2026 Senate platform does not state a specific abortion position.

Moving abortion authority from Washington to Raleigh explains which level of government Bray believes should decide abortion policy. It does not explain how his earlier position that government should not restrict a woman’s decision became support for a state-imposed gestational limit.

HEALTH CARE

In 2020, Bray supported a Medicare-style public insurance option alongside private insurance and allowing the federal government to negotiate prescription drug prices. His 2026 platform, however, calls instead for repealing “top-down federal healthcare mandates,” expanding Health Savings Accounts, increasing price transparency and encouraging state-led solutions. His campaign says health-care decisions should be made by patients and doctors, not Washington. I have not found Bray explaining whether he still supports the public insurance option he endorsed in 2020 or, if not, why his position changed.

Bray also acknowledges that competition does not work well when a few hospitals or medical practices dominate a market. He supports maintaining a safety net for people facing catastrophic illness, serious disability or extreme poverty. He argues that programs such as Medicaid should be judged not simply by enrollment but by whether patients actually find providers, receive treatment and experience better outcomes.

EDUCATION

Bray has consistently opposed federal control of education, but his description of government’s proper role has varied over the years. In 2019 he opposed federal education standards. During his 2024 gubernatorial campaign, he supported school choice and voucher expansion. Asked what he would do to strengthen public schools, he answered: “I believe in school choice; ultimately, the government should be removed from education.” His current Senate platform is less sweeping, calling for reduced federal control, greater parental choice and local decision-making, and expanded technical and skills-based education.

GUNS

Bray’s position on firearms also appears to have moved. In 2019 he said he generally supported gun control legislation and defended North Carolina’s concealed-carry permitting system. By 2022, he was arguing that mass shootings were not fundamentally a gun-control problem, but rather related to social alienation, social media and suicide. His later writing adopted a stronger natural-rights argument against additional gun restrictions.

PRIVACY AND GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE

Concern about government surveillance has been one of Bray’s more consistent positions. In 2022, asked what issue Congress most needed to investigate, he answered: “Why the government continues to spy on its citizens.” His current proposals call for companies to collect less personal information, tighter limits on government’s ability to obtain commercially collected data, and records showing who accessed sensitive information and under what authority. His position is: “Security without a surveillance state.”

TRUMP AND EXECUTIVE POWER

During Donald Trump’s first impeachment, Bray said he would have voted to convict Trump on both articles. He also criticized Trump’s diversion of congressionally appropriated military construction money for the border wall, arguing that Congress, not the president, controls appropriations. The same concern appears in his current position on presidential war powers: sustained military action requires congressional authorization except when immediate defensive action is necessary. In a September 2026 Reddit AMA, Bray also expressed mixed feelings about implementation of DOGE’s federal-workforce reductions while continuing to support reducing government waste.

Across these examples, Bray has repeatedly objected to executive action that he believes bypasses Congress or lacks sufficient accountability.

IMMIGRATION AND ICE

Bray supports secure borders and immigration enforcement while also calling for a simpler legal immigration system. His earlier campaigns emphasized easier access to visas and greater use of technology to identify criminals and secure the border. His current campaign combines border enforcement with language about human dignity, individual rights, and due process. He has also proposed technology-based border and port security intended to avoid creating a broader domestic surveillance system. What I have not found is a clear 2026 Bray position on current ICE interior enforcement, mass deportation, detention practices, workplace or residential raids, asylum policy, or what should happen to undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for many years.

WHAT HAS BRAY ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHED?

Bray’s technology career predates his political campaigns by many years. His professional history includes U.S. Navy service from 1991 to 1997; software and web development; work at Visa; teaching computer science at Arapahoe Community College; work as a Microsoft Certified Trainer; cybersecurity positions; and work as a senior systems architect for the U.S. Department of Defense. He also co-authored two specialized books on Microsoft SharePoint and has reported extensive volunteer involvement with the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps and U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Bray identifies himself as creator of the Lantern Protocol/Evidence Transparency System, a project he traces to 2018. His recent writing describes it as an effort to build evidence and accountability directly into digital systems.

WHY DOES BRAY KEEP RUNNING?

Bray received more than 171,000 votes in his first Senate campaign in 2020 and ran again in 2022. In 2024, he entered a contested Libertarian primary for governor and argued that having a primary could draw attention to Libertarian ideas and strengthen the party’s campaigns. After he lost, the Libertarian Party of North Carolina later selected him to replace its lieutenant-governor nominee after she withdrew.

Now he is running for Senate again. His campaign announcement says he “accepted an offer” to run but does not identify who made the offer. The Libertarian Party of North Carolina subsequently paid his $1,740 filing fee, as reported to the Federal Election Commission. Bray says he chose to run for the U.S. Senate because of its role in civil liberties and surveillance law, defense and intelligence oversight, technology and cybersecurity, infrastructure, and federal spending. His current campaign likewise emphasizes those areas.

MICHAEL WHATLEY (Republican)

WHO IS MICHAEL WHATLEY?

Michael Whatley grew up in Blowing Rock, graduated from Watauga High School and went on to earn degrees from UNC Charlotte, Wake Forest University and Notre Dame Law School. He later served as chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, worked in energy lobbying and consulting, chaired the North Carolina Republican Party and, at Donald Trump’s request, became chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 2024 election.

That résumé makes Whatley different from the other candidates in this race. Much of his professional life has been spent not developing a public record as an elected official, but helping businesses, candidates and political organizations accomplish their objectives. Now he is the candidate. And his campaign says its first objective is to “Enact the Trump Agenda in the U.S. Senate.”

But Whatley’s own positions are often stated only broadly. His campaign promises to fight illegal immigration, promote American energy, defend the Second Amendment, “protect life,” support law enforcement and oppose what he calls “radical woke ideology” in schools. But what exactly does Whatley propose to do if elected?

TRUMP AND THE 2020 ELECTION

Whatley’s relationship with Donald Trump predates his Senate campaign. He supported Trump’s 2016 campaign and led the incoming administration’s transition teams dealing with energy, environment and agriculture. Trump later supported Whatley’s elevation to chairman of the Republican National Committee and endorsed him for Senate. Whatley also supported Trump’s challenges to the 2020 presidential election. As chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, Whatley said after the election that there had been “massive fraud” in Milwaukee, Detroit and Philadelphia. He repeated claims that Republican observers had been prevented from properly observing voting and said litigation might overturn results in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

By January 2, 2021, Whatley was saying that Biden would likely be certified and sworn in, while continuing to call what had happened in several cities “very, very troubling.” After the January 6 attack on the Capitol, he condemned the violence. By February, he publicly acknowledged that Biden had been legitimately elected, explaining that the Electoral College had voted and a majority had voted for Biden.

Whatley did not, however, abandon “election integrity” as a major political focus. Instead, as RNC chairman in 2024, he helped build a national election-integrity operation intended to recruit more than 100,000 poll watchers, poll workers and attorneys in battleground states. The RNC said it had become involved in more than 80 election-related lawsuits in more than 20 states. Whatley said the effort would concentrate on mail voting, voter rolls, non-citizen voting and voter identification, and that Republicans needed to be “in the room” when votes were cast and counted.

In short, Whatley’s record after 2020 is more complicated than simply saying he denied the election result. He made specific claims of massive fraud that were not substantiated, later acknowledged Biden as the legitimate president, and then helped make election-integrity litigation and poll monitoring a major national Republican operation.

IMMIGRATION

Whatley’s campaign says he “100%” supports Trump’s border policies and the deportation of “millions of criminal illegal aliens.” His campaign also criticizes Roy Cooper for vetoing legislation as governor that would have required North Carolina sheriffs to cooperate more extensively with ICE. More recent statements make clear that Whatley’s support extends beyond those positions. As RNC chairman in 2024, he pressed Republican officials to oppose the bipartisan Senate immigration bill that would have increased border-security funding, changed asylum procedures and created some new avenues to legal status.

In August, WRAL reported that Whatley and his campaign said that, if elected, he would vote for Trump’s immigration policies and support legislation intended to continue Trump’s approach after Trump leaves office. Whatley also told the president of the Border Patrol agents’ union that he would support additional laws and funding for immigration enforcement. That enforcement program has extended beyond undocumented immigrants convicted of violent crimes. Many people arrested by ICE have had no criminal record, and enforcement has included workplace raids. There have also been documented cases of legal immigrants and U.S. citizens being wrongfully detained.

DUKE ENERGY

Before becoming chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party in 2019, Whatley was executive vice president of Consumer Energy Alliance, an energy advocacy and lobbying organization operated by HBW Resources, where Whatley also worked. Duke Energy was among CEA’s clients. While Whatley worked with CEA, the organization advocated before North Carolina regulators for utility rate increases, supported the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline being developed by Duke Energy and Dominion Energy, and argued that Duke should be permitted to recover coal-ash cleanup costs from customers. Whatley left CEA in 2019. Whatley’s current financial disclosure also reports that his family owns between $163,000 and $445,000 in Duke Energy stock.

None of that by itself establishes what Whatley would do for Duke Energy as a senator. But it does establish a long professional and financial connection to an industry that is now central to his Senate platform, which says America’s economic strength depends upon “reliable, affordable energy” and that expanding American energy production will lower costs. The issue is not merely historical. Duke Energy is currently seeking another North Carolina rate increase. In August, Spectrum News asked Whatley’s campaign whether he supports Duke’s proposed rate increase. His campaign did not answer the question.

ABORTION

Whatley’s current Senate campaign says only that he will “protect life.” It does not specify what federal abortion legislation he would support, a gestational limit, or whether he believes abortion law should primarily be determined by Congress or the states. His earlier record is more specific. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Whatley, then chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, praised anti-abortion activists for defending what he called “the sanctity of life.”

North Carolina Republicans enacted the state’s current abortion law in 2023. That law generally allows abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. It permits abortion through 20 weeks in cases of rape or incest, through 24 weeks for a life-limiting fetal anomaly, and at any time in a medical emergency. Whatley described the new law as a “responsible” measure within the “mainstream” of North Carolina political opinion.

But the Republican Party’s position on abortion has changed while Whatley has held leadership positions. The North Carolina Republican platform adopted while he chaired the state party contained substantially more restrictive abortion language. When Whatley became RNC chairman, however, he defended a 2024 national Republican platform that left states free to adopt their own abortion laws and called for opposition to “late term abortion” while supporting prenatal care, contraception and IVF.

HURRICANE HELENE

For those of us living in Western North Carolina, Whatley’s role in Hurricane Helene recovery deserves particular scrutiny.

After returning to office, President Trump publicly said he was putting Whatley “in charge of making sure everything goes well” with Western North Carolina’s recovery. The administration also appointed Whatley to the FEMA Review Council, which Trump created to recommend changes to the federal government’s disaster-response system.

Whatley’s campaign says he worked with the Trump administration to deliver $10.5 billion for Western North Carolina and describes that as more money than any storm recovery in state history. The State of North Carolina reported a somewhat different number in May 2026: $8.3 billion in federal funding awarded for Helene recovery. Either way, what is clear is that the need remains much larger.

North Carolina now estimates Helene caused nearly $60 billion in damage. In June, Gov. Josh Stein asked Congress for more than $10 billion in additional federal recovery assistance, including money for housing, water and wastewater systems, roads, bridges and local governments. But the Trump administration’s $88 billion supplemental spending request that month contained no additional Helene recovery money. Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Budd responded that he would oppose a supplemental package that failed to include funding for Western North Carolina. Whatley’s campaign responded that he had already helped deliver $10.5 billion. Whatley himself had previously described the recovery as “going really well,” while acknowledging that more remained to be done.

Whatley’s role also extended beyond obtaining recovery money. He participated in deciding what federal disaster assistance should look like in the future. At the FEMA Review Council’s first public meeting, Whatley referred specifically to his experience with Helene and said the country needed a disaster agency capable of being there for Americans on their worst day. He subsequently described FEMA as an agency that had “lost its mission focus,” citing bureaucracy, inefficient use of federal money and states that were insufficiently prepared for major disasters.

Whatley has gone further in discussing FEMA outside the council. At a May campaign event, when a woman asked whether FEMA could be eliminated, Whatley replied: “I’ve suggested the president do that.” The council’s final report, however, did not recommend abolishing FEMA.

In May 2026, the council on which Whatley served approved its final report. Among its recommendations was a major restructuring of federal disaster assistance that would give states and local governments greater responsibility while reducing the federal government’s role. The report recommends reducing the normal federal share of certain disaster costs from a minimum of 75 percent to 50 percent, although states could qualify for a higher percentage under the proposed system and the president could authorize 100 percent. North Carolina officials have said that a lower federal share could have left the state and its local governments responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in additional Helene costs.

The council’s recommendation is not yet law, and some major changes would require congressional action. For Western North Carolina, that leaves several concrete questions:

— How much Helene money has actually reached North Carolina, rather than merely been authorized or awarded?
— What did Whatley personally do to obtain the assistance his campaign credits him with delivering?
— What has Whatley done when Western North Carolina sought additional assistance that the Trump administration did not provide?

And, as a candidate for the United States Senate: Does Whatley support shifting a larger share of future disaster-recovery costs from the federal government to states and local communities?

WHEN WHATLEY HAS HAD POWER, WHAT HAS HE DONE WITH IT?

Whatley’s campaign makes his political alignment unusually explicit: he is running to enact Donald Trump’s agenda. But alignment is not the same thing as a Senate program. On several major issues (including abortion, firearms and education) the Whatley campaign provides broad statements of principle without much legislative detail. On immigration, Whatley has now made his support for continuing Trump’s approach considerably clearer.

But Whatley’s existing record gives us a window. He has spent years working in the energy industry and advocating before government on energy issues. He made claims of massive election fraud after the 2020 presidential election that were not substantiated, then helped build the Republican Party’s national election-integrity and litigation operation. And after Hurricane Helene, he received unusual access to the Trump administration and a seat on the federal council charged with recommending how disaster response should change.