Roy Cooper is an early favorite to be one of the most annoyingly disingenuous candidates of the 2026 election cycle.

It’s still very early in the 2026 election cycle, but North Carolina Democratic senate candidate Roy Cooper is an early favorite to be one of the most annoyingly disingenuous candidates of the cycle.

On August 22 — more than two weeks ago — on a Charlotte, N.C., light rail train car, Decarlos Brown, unprovoked, pulled out a knife and stabbed Iryna Zarutska to death. As you probably know, Brown has a long record of crimes, including felony charges for larceny and breaking and entering, robbery with a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm by a felon, and assault, going back to 2011. He had been arrested 14 times.

Cooper was North Carolina’s state attorney general from 2001 to 2017, and governor from 2017 to the beginning of this year. North Carolinians likely have more than fair questions about what Cooper thinks of Brown returning back on to the streets, again and again, until he finally murdered an innocent young woman in cold blood.

Cooper’s had a long while to come up with a statement on the Zarutska murder. This is what he had to say:

The murder of Iryna Zarutska is a horrible tragedy and we must do everything we can to keep people safe. Only a cynical DC insider would think it’s acceptable to use her death for political points, especially one who supported cutting funding to law enforcement in NC.

I’ve been Attorney General and Governor, dedicating my career to putting violent criminals behind bars and keeping them there. It’s time Michael Whatley and the GOP get serious in Washington about funding our law enforcement, and that’s what I’ll do as Senator.

This is pablum. Put aside the rote denunciation of his opponent for allegedly “use her death for political points” and then turning around and accusing the GOP of not funding law enforcement. (Ah, you know those Republicans, always soft on crime and cutting police budgets!)

It is not “playing politics” to conclude that the authorities in North Carolina have utterly failed in their duties regarding both the violent repeat offenders and the mentally ill, or to conclude that the reason so many people in so many cities feel unsafe is because governments, both local and state, do a poor job of keeping violent criminals behind bars.

Nor is there any sign that Brown being on the streets is a matter of “funding for law enforcement.” Police had sufficient funding to arrest him 14 times. Arresting him was not the problem; keeping him behind bars, and providing any useful response to his schizophrenia, were. Throwing money at the problems of urban crime won’t make much difference if there isn’t a change in policies and prosecutorial efforts to go with it.

One last note: Roy Cooper is 68 years old. Yes, that seems young by Senate Democratic candidate standards, particularly when Maine governor Janet Mills, who turns 78 at the end of the year, is in the mix. (If elected to the Senate, Mills would be 85 at the end of her term.) But over two and a half weeks, a murder in Charlotte became one of the biggest hot-button political controversies in the country, and a Democratic candidate who you would think would be well-positioned for some triangulation instead offered a brief, tepid, cookie-cutter call for more police funding. It seems more than fair to wonder if, as they used to say about Joe Biden, he’s lost a little speed on his fastball.