Cooper leads polling in race to succeed retiring Tillis
Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail Wednesday with a rally at Gastonia municipal airport in support of Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley, his first campaign appearance since the Republican midterm convention in Dallas last week. The event aimed to energize Republican voters behind Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chair who is running in a crucial battleground race against Cooper, the Democratic former governor.
According to The Guardian, Republicans hope to once again turn the president’s loyal following into a political force as the party confronts an unforgiving midterm landscape, despite Trump’s deep unpopularity.
From the stage, Trump cast himself as essential to Republican turnout. “I’m not bragging, but when I’m on the ticket Republicans have always done really well,” Trump told supporters. “I just want you to go out and pretend I’m on the ticket, because essentially I am.” He also implored supporters to “crush the communists” in the November elections.
The seat opened with Tillis’s retirement, giving Democrats a rare opportunity to flip a seat in a state that has repeatedly dashed the party’s hopes in recent elections but which could decide the balance of power in the Senate this November. Democrats must prevail in at least four Republican-held seats to win control of the chamber.
By tying himself to the president, Whatley is hoping Trump’s command of the party’s base can translate into broader support in a state where independent voters make up a large share of the electorate, with The Guardian noting that concerns about prices, the economy and the administration’s handling of the war in Iran have complicated the political landscape.
Trump’s appearance underscored Republicans’ challenge in North Carolina, a state where polls have consistently shown Cooper ahead of Whatley. Nodding to Cooper’s polling edge, Trump claimed there was a misconception about the former governor’s politics. “He tries to pretend he’s a moderate,” Trump said of Cooper. “He’s not.” Whatley returned the embrace, praising Trump on stage as “the greatest president of our lifetime.”
From the Gastonia stage, Trump cast the Senate contest as a referendum on Cooper’s governorship, framing the election around “safety” and “bad management.” He invoked the killing of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee fatally stabbed on a Charlotte light rail train last year. Describing the attack in gruesome detail, Trump falsely claimed that Decarlos Brown Jr, the man arrested and charged with her killing, had been released from prison by Cooper.
Trump then displayed dozens of mugshots on a video screen and explicitly compared his attack on Cooper to the notorious “Willie Horton” attack ad used by George H.W. Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign against Michael Dukakis. “Years ago in Massachusetts, there was a governor named Dukakis, Michael Dukakis, you remember, who had a very substantial lead for president,” Trump said. “He was going to win easily, but he allowed a man named Willie Horton out of jail. Willie Horton was a bad guy, really bad guy. Same thing as this. Same exact thing.”
Trump described Whatley as the “candidate of law and order” who preferred that criminals be “executed, arrested or deported.”
Ahead of the rally, local Democrats held a news conference to denounce Whatley for supporting Trump’s agenda. State Senator Woodson Bradley questioned Whatley’s alignment with the president. “Why would Whatley back a war that is driving up prices for North Carolina families at a time when it’s already too hard for us to get by?” Bradley said. “Let’s not find that out, North Carolina. He’s already shown us everything we need to know.”
On a separate front, Trump attacked the Federal Reserve after the central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-point on Wednesday — its first increase since 2023. The Fed said persistent inflation warranted the move. Speaking to reporters on the tarmac before the rally, Trump called the central bank “very hostile” and said its officials were “a bunch of politicians.” He repeated several times that interest rates were “too high” and added, “They’re doing the wrong thing.”
Trump lavished praise on Whatley, his hand-picked choice for the seat, calling him a “ball-breaker” and “one of the greatest men I ever worked with in government.” “I had my choice of the whole country,” Trump said. “I chose Michael Whatley.”