Cooper holds 14-point lead in North Carolina Senate race poll

Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) maintained a strong lead in the state’s Senate race in a new poll released Tuesday.

The WRAL/WSOC poll, which was conducted by SurveyUSA, found the Democrat with a 14-point advantage over former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley.

Cooper’s lead exceeded the survey’s margin of error and was his strongest polling result. Fifty-four percent of likely North Carolina voters said they would back the former governor in the November contest, while 40 percent expressed their support for the Republican nominee.

Early voting in North Carolina begins this week.

The two candidates are competing in the open race to replace retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R), who announced his departure from Congress following repeated clashes with President Trump over a massive tax and spending legislative package.

Tillis recently endorsed Whatley in the race to replace him, but he warned the Republican candidate against campaigning with Trump amid the president’s low job approval ratings.

“I don’t think it benefits him. I haven’t seen any poll where [Trump] is going to help us with unaffiliateds,” he told NewsNation, The Hill’s broadcast partner, last week.

Trump told reporters earlier this month that he was “worried” about Whatley’s chances in this election. The president stumped for the Republican nominee in September, following the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas.

“I hope he wins. He was a great leader for the whole Republican Party when I won, and he’d be a great senator,” the president told reporters on Oct. 2.

Trump’s comments came amid a decision from the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP leadership’s super PAC, to cancel $6.5 million in ad reservations in North Carolina.

The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, rates the North Carolina Senate race as “Likely Democrat.” Cooper has posted over a 10-point lead in several recent polls, including in surveys commissioned by the AARP and the Public Polling Project.

The WRAL News poll was conducted among 643 likely voters with a margin of error of 4.6 percentage points.