With a little more than two months until the midterm elections, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley campaigned Friday in Charlotte.
During a press conference at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge, Whatley focused on public safety and attacked Democratic opponent Roy Cooper’s record on crime. Whatley has made support for law enforcement a central theme of his campaign.
The appearance came one day short of one year after the murder of Iryna Zarutska on the light rail. Whatley blamed cashless bail and argued Cooper, North Carolina's governor from 2017 to last year, has been too lenient on crime. Whatley said his stance on public safety separates him from Cooper.
"This is a man who is going to have a pro-criminal agenda the moment that he gets to the Senate," Whatley said. "And when President Trump makes appointments to the United States Supreme Court or the courts of appeals or the district courts across this country, a Senator Roy Cooper would vote no on every single one of them."
In response, Cooper's campaign said in a statement:
“While Roy spent his career putting rapists and violent criminals behind bars and signing tough-on-crime laws as governor, Michael Whatley spent his appointing a convicted child sex predator who served six years in prison and spent over a decade as a registered sex offender to a top role within the North Carolina Republican Party that gave him access to meetings with children.”
The latest High Point University poll shows that Cooper has a 5% lead.
