RALEIGH – Democrat Roy Cooper led Republican Michael Whatley by 14.9 percentage points in a new AtlasIntel poll of North Carolina likely voters released the day before the election.
The Atlas/Pollstergraph survey put Cooper at 56.4% and Whatley at 41.5%. Another 1.3% selected other, while 0.4% said they did not know and 0.4% said they would not vote. The displayed percentages total 100%, including those responses.
AtlasIntel interviewed 1,459 likely voters from Oct. 28 through Nov. 1. Its public release archive dates the North Carolina report Nov. 2. The firm reports a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.
The survey used AtlasIntel’s Random Digital Recruitment method, which recruits respondents during web browsing within specified geographic areas. The firm says it adjusts samples using demographic and geographic characteristics and previous voting behavior. It was not a telephone survey.
The ballot question asked respondents who they would support if the North Carolina Senate election were held today with the listed candidates. The figures describe answers gathered during the field period, not a count of ballots or a projection of the winner.
The race will determine the successor to Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who announced his retirement last year. Cooper, a former two-term governor, and Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chairman, are competing for a seat Democrats view as an opportunity to change control of the Senate, ABC11 reported.
That report described Cooper’s emphasis on affordability and Whatley’s alignment with President Donald Trump. Those campaign themes provide context for the contest; this poll alone does not establish why respondents preferred a candidate.
The 14.9-point gap is the difference between the two candidates’ reported shares. It should not be read as a guaranteed final margin. Election results depend on ballots actually cast and counted, and surveys can be affected by turnout assumptions, recruitment, weighting and other errors beyond their stated statistical interval.
Sources
- Atlas/Pollstergraph: North Carolina results and methodology
- ABC11: North Carolina Senate race context
- AtlasIntel: Original release archive and date
Photo Credit: File photographs: Roy Cooper, Durham, April 9, 2026, by NetwonsBucket; Michael Whatley, Las Vegas, Aug. 30, 2026, by Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons. Both CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped, resized and combined; photographic adaptation shared under the same license. NCPN logo is a separate brand mark.
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.