Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley was in Waynesville over the weekend for an event hosted by the Haywood County Republican Party.
The race between Whatley and his Democratic opponent, former governor Roy Cooper, is one of a handful that could determine control of the U.S. Senate in November.
Addressing a crowd of about three-dozen people at the Waynesville Recreation Center, Whatley, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, described himself as “a conservative champion” and criticized Cooper at length.
“The people of North Carolina have spoken very clearly about what matters to them: More jobs and better jobs. More money. Less taxes, less regulations. Safe kids and communities,” Whatley said. “We want criminals behind bars, not walking on the streets like my opponent, Roy Cooper, put them out.”
He made no mention of Hurricane Helene in his remarks and took no questions from reporters.
The event was hosted by the Haywood County Republican Party. Kim Genova, the party’s chair, said the GOP is aiming to increase its candidates’ vote totals across the 11th Congressional District by 10% over their performance in the last midterm election cycle in 2022.
“Elections are won by few votes,” Genova told BPR in an interview. “And if we take our candidates from the top of the ballot to the bottom of the ballot and we get 10% more votes for each of them than the midterms in 2022, there's no doubt every one of our Republican candidates will win.”
But that could prove difficult in a year when President Donald Trump and many of his signature policy objectives are deeply unpopular with voters. Most polls in the North Carolina Senate race show Cooper leading Whatley, although some show the race narrowing in recent weeks.
Whatley urged audience members to vote in November and to persuade their friends and neighbors to do the same. But some attendees, like Bobbie Ammons of Nantahala, said concerns about alleged voter fraud are weighing on their minds.
“Well, is there any reason to vote if it's all fraud?” she told BPR in an interview.
Steve Dean, who joined Ammons at the event, agreed.
“I mean, it's really important, because if people don't have confidence that the system is fair, it can have very bad consequences,” Dean said.
Ammons and Dean are both independents — the largest voting bloc in North Carolina and a crucial group in the Senate race.
“Independents are a group that any candidate has to pay attention to, because they're probably going to have the people in their own party,” Dean said. “So, you have to appeal to the people that are more flexible, more likely to go one way or the other.”
While Trump and top Republicans have focused heavily on the topic of election integrity, no widespread fraud was found in the 2020 election – and some observers say the effort could actually backfire by dissuading some would-be voters from going to the polls.
In a statement, the Cooper campaign defended the former governor's record on public safety and criticized Whatley over his ties to sex offender Harvey West Jr.
“Roy spent his career putting rapists and violent criminals behind bars and signing tough on crime laws as governor, while Michael Whatley spent his appointing a convicted child sex predator who served time in jail to a powerful position within the North Carolina Republican Party,” the Cooper campaign said.
The Senate race is expected to be among the most expensive in U.S. history, with some analysts predicting as much as $500 million in total spending. The most recent fundraising figures, released last week, show Cooper raised $14.8 million in the second quarter of the year compared with $5 million for Whatley.
