A former two-term Democratic governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, says he is running for the United States Senate in 2026, handing Democrats their best pick-up opportunity in the state in years. He is likely to face the current chairman of the Republican National Committee next year. 

Mr. Cooper has a long history of winning difficult statewide races, even when his party falls flat. He won the state attorney general’s office in 2000, 2004, and 2012, all on the same nights that Republican presidential candidates carried his state. He won the governor’s mansion in 2016 and 2020 on the same ballot where North Carolinians chose President Trump. 

In a video posted to X on Monday morning, Mr. Cooper said that it was never his dream to go to Washington, though he believes he is best fit to serve his state at this moment. 

“These are not ordinary times. Politicians in D.C. are running up our debt, ripping away our healthcare, disrespecting our veterans, cutting help for the poor, and even putting Medicare and Social Security at risk just to give tax breaks to billionaires,” Mr. Cooper says in his announcement video. “I’ve had enough.”

Mr. Cooper is one of the most formidable candidates Democrats have been able to recruit thus far for the 2026 Senate races. Next year, Democrats have to hold an open seat in Michigan — a state that Mr. Trump won last year by single digits — while also re-electing Senator Ossoff in Georgia. They will also have to defend their open seats in New Hampshire and Minnesota, states Vice President Harris narrowly won last year. 

Democrats have yet to draw a serious challenger to Senator Collins in Maine. Ms. Collins has not said whether she is running for a sixth term at the age of 72. 

In order to win the Senate majority next year, Democrats would have to run the table, holding all of their current seats while flipping states like Maine and North Carolina, along with two others from more solidly Republican states: Texas, Iowa, Florida, or Ohio. 

The Democrats’ Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, and the chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Kirsten Gillibrand, made clear that Senate Democrats were going to swiftly line up behind Mr. Cooper. 

“Governor Cooper is a formidable candidate who will flip North Carolina’s Senate seat, and his announcement is the latest indication that the Republicans’ Senate majority is at risk in 2026,” Mr. Schumer and Ms. Gillibrand said in a joint statement on Monday. 

In the general election next year, Mr. Cooper is likely to face off against the current chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, who was instrumental in Mr. Trump’s 2024 victory. He previously served as chairman of the North Carolina GOP before being endorsed by Mr. Trump to take over the national organization. 

The president has already endorsed Mr. Whatley for the Senate seat even though he has yet to make a candidacy announcement. The president’s support is likely to clear the field, now that his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, and several House Republicans from the state have declined to toss their names into the Senate race. 

“I am sending this Statement out for a very good reason. Mike would make an unbelievable Senator from North Carolina. He is fantastic at everything he does,” Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post last week, preemptively endorsing Mr. Whatley. “But I have a mission for my friends in North Carolina, and that is to get Michael Whatley to run for the U.S. Senate.”