RALEIGH – A new Opinion Diagnostics poll commissioned by Common Cause North Carolina shows Democrat Roy Cooper leading Republican Michael Whatley by 10 percentage points in the state’s U.S. Senate race.
The survey found Cooper at 51.3% and Whatley at 41.3% on the initial ballot. Another 2% of respondents selected another candidate, while 5.4% were undecided. After undecided voters were asked which candidate they leaned toward, Cooper led 51.7% to 43.5%, with 2% choosing another candidate and 2.8% still unsure.
Opinion Diagnostics conducted the poll for Common Cause North Carolina, an advocacy organization. The pollster surveyed 857 likely November 2026 voters from Sept. 17 through Sept. 20. Potential respondents were randomly selected from the North Carolina voter file and contacted either by live-operator telephone calls or by text messages linking to an online survey. Candidate order was rotated.
The pollster said the results were weighted by party registration, region, gender, age, race and ethnicity, education, and recalled vote in the 2024 presidential election. It reported a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
The survey is one snapshot of the race, not an election forecast. Its sponsorship, question wording, voter screen and weighting are important context when comparing it with other polls. The Common Cause survey was not independently replicated by the news organizations reporting its results.
WRAL reported Friday that no public poll had shown Whatley leading, although several recent surveys put the Republican within single digits of Cooper after earlier polls showed wider margins. The candidates are competing for the open seat held by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who is not seeking reelection.
The North Carolina contest is being watched nationally because its outcome could affect control of the U.S. Senate.
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Photo Credit: NCDOTcommunications via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (Roy Cooper, Nov. 17, 2023); Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Michael Whatley, Aug. 30, 2026). Cropped for a neutral split-screen comparison; standard NC Political News footer applied.
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.