North Carolina Senate Race polls: Roy Cooper (D), Michael Whatley (R), and three other candidates are running in North Carolina's US Senate election on November 3, 2026. With 15 days to go before the November 3 election, former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has a 13% lead over Republican Michael Whatley among likely voters in the race for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, according to Elon University poll. Cooper has maintained strong leads in this race throughout this year’s surveys, the poll shows. This final poll before election day was conducted Sept. 29 – Oct. 8 and gathered input from 800 North Carolina adults, with an overall margin of error of 4.03%.
Cooper was favored by 52% of likely voters, compared with 39% who favored Whatley, 6% who were undecided and 3% of likely voters said they favored Libertarian candidate Shannon Bray, Green Party candidate Michael Dublin, or “someone else.”
