GREENVILLE – An East Carolina University poll released Thursday found Democrat Roy Cooper leading Republican Michael Whatley 50% to 43% among likely North Carolina voters in the 2026 U.S. Senate race.
Six percent of respondents were undecided and 2% supported a minor-party or write-in candidate. ECU’s previous survey, conducted Aug. 31 through Sept. 3, showed Cooper ahead 46% to 39% with 14% undecided. The seven-point margin is unchanged, but the new survey shows fewer voters remaining undecided.
The ECU Center for Survey Research conducted the new poll Sept. 30 through Oct. 3. Results are based on 810 likely voters. The survey combined a random sample of registered voters with an online panel used to supplement responses from voters ages 18 to 29 and Hispanic voters.
Respondents completed the survey through MMS-to-web text or the supplemental online panel. ECU said the data were weighted by age, education, race and ethnicity, gender, region, party identification and election modeling. The poll’s credibility interval is plus or minus 4 percentage points; intervals are larger for subgroups.
The survey found 55% of likely voters named the economy and cost of living as their most important issue. Among those respondents, Cooper led 60% to 31%. Cooper also led among self-described independents, 52% to 36%. Those results describe the poll’s sample and do not establish why individual voters support a candidate.
RealClearPolling added the ECU survey to its North Carolina Senate archive. Its Thursday average showed Cooper at 49.8% and Whatley at 41.0%, an 8.8-point margin across polls fielded from Sept. 6 through Oct. 3. Poll averages combine surveys with different sponsors, samples and methods, so the average provides context rather than independent replication of ECU’s result.
The poll arrives after the Associated Press reported that the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican-aligned super PAC, was pulling back $18 million in planned North Carolina advertising and shifting resources to Kansas. The spending decision and the ECU poll are separate developments, and neither alone predicts the election outcome.
Sources
- ECU Center for Survey Research poll release
- RealClearPolling North Carolina Senate poll archive
- Associated Press report on Senate campaign spending
Photo Credit: Roy Cooper: U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Mary Junell / North Carolina National Guard, public domain in the United States. Michael Whatley: Whatley for Senate campaign press photograph from the campaign’s media toolkit.
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.