North Carolina’s former Democratic governor Roy Cooper is expected to announce his 2026 campaign for retiring GOP Senator Thom Tillis’s seat in the coming days, Axios reports. The news is a welcome development to Tar Heel Democrats who have long believed that Cooper is the strongest candidate to win the race in a state that tilts blue in gubernatorial races and red in Senate contests.

Pressed by National Review for comment, longtime Cooper consultant Morgan Jackson would not confirm the news but emphasized that the former governor plans to make “his intentions known in the coming days.”

As NR has previously reported, prospective Republican Senate candidates are waiting for President Trump to pick a favorite in the GOP primary so that the party can avoid a costly and damaging primary. North Carolina Republicans are eager to unite the party behind a consensus candidate following Tillis’s vote against the reconciliation bill earlier this month and continuing clashes with the White House on Trump nominees. Cooper’s expected candidacy adds a new level of urgency for Republicans, considering the former two-term governor has never lost a race and has near-universal name recognition in the state.

While Democrats celebrate the former governor’s long-anticipated 2026 Senate candidacy, Republicans in the state emphasize that the Senate race is not a slam dunk for Democrats even with someone like Cooper on the ballot.

Voter data show that Democrats have lost hundreds of thousands of registered voters “in a state that has grown rapidly” in recent years,  says Dallas Woodhouse, the former state director of the North Carolina Republican Party and current state director of American Majority.

The challenge for Republicans in 2026 is that the president’s coalition includes many low-propensity voters who only get off the couch on Election Day when Trump is on the ballot, Woodhouse added. So no matter the candidate, North Carolina Republicans will need a strong turnout operation next midterm cycle.