RALEIGH – A Carolina Journal poll released Thursday found Democrat Roy Cooper leading Republican Michael Whatley 49.4% to 39.1% among likely voters in North Carolina’s open U.S. Senate race.
The 10.3-point difference was 4.8 points smaller than the organization’s September result. Whatley rose from 34.1% to 39.1%, while Cooper moved from 49.2% to 49.4%. The undecided share fell from 12.3% to 6.8%.
Libertarian Shannon Bray received 2.9% and Green Party candidate Michael Dublin received 1.9%. In a separate question limited to Cooper and Whatley, Cooper received 51.6%, Whatley 42.0% and 6.5% were undecided. The questions use different answer choices and should not be treated as interchangeable.
The survey included 600 likely 2026 general-election voters and was conducted Oct. 18-20 through live phone interviews and text messages directing respondents to an online questionnaire. The toplines report a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. As with any poll, the result is a snapshot of the field period rather than a forecast of the Nov. 3 election.
The same poll found Democratic incumbent Anita Earls leading Republican Sarah Stevens 47.3% to 39.7% in the North Carolina Supreme Court race, with 13% undecided.
On the generic state legislative ballot, 48.5% chose Democratic candidates, 42.7% chose Republican candidates and 8.8% were undecided. On the generic congressional ballot, Democrats led 49.1% to 43.2%, with 7.7% undecided. Those questions measure party preference statewide and do not predict results in any individual district.
270toWin’s separately maintained North Carolina Senate poll archive lists the Oct. 22 Harper Polling release with the same sample size, margin of error and rounded 49%-39% topline. That listing helps confirm the public release record; it does not independently validate the poll’s accuracy.
Sources
- Carolina Journal: October 2026 poll article
- Harper Polling: complete North Carolina toplines
- 270toWin: 2026 North Carolina Senate poll archive
Photo Credit: Roy Cooper photograph by Staff Sgt. Mary Junell, North Carolina National Guard, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Michael Whatley photograph by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Images cropped and resized.
Editor’s Note: This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed and fact-checked by a member of the NC Political News editorial team before publication.