The Democrats Don't Have a U.S. Senate Candidate in NC Yet. Is This Out of the Ordinary?

 by Christopher Cooper

The 2026 U.S. Senate election in North Carolina promises to be one of the most hostly contested U.S. Senate election--and possibly the most hotly contested election period--in 2026. The incumbent Republican Thom Tillis has come under fire from his own party and, not surprisingly, from the Democrats as well. 

While I don't believe that Tillis is likely to lose the primary, the outcome of the General Election is much more unknown. The party of the President always loses seats in the midterm year and Tillis is the only Republican incumbent Senator up for re-election in a purple state.

The only problem for the Democrats: they don't have a candidate yet.

Former member of Congress and member of the North Carolina General Assembly Wiley Nickel announced he would run for the seat in December, 2023 and has filed for the seat with the FEC, but more recently he has seemed more uncertain about his candidacy. A few weeks ago, he said in an appearance on the Muck You podcast that he was "looking at a Senate run." It appears that he's not a candidate. At least not yet.

The reason for the uncertainty, it would seem, is that he's waiting for former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper to make his a decision. Cooper is currently teaching at Harvard while he "mulls" a U.S. Senate run.

So, how long does Cooper have? There's no definitive answer to that question, but for some guidance, I catalogued the announcement date for prominent non-incumbent US Senate candidates from the 2004, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2020 and 2022 elections. I also included Andy Nilsson, Tillis' first challenger in the Republican primary in 2026.  The NC primary election dates move around more often than a circus clown, so to provide some measure of comparability, I calculated the number of days between the announcement and the primary date for that cycle. Today (April 1, 2025) is 326 days until the 2026 primary; that is also indicated on the graph.

As you can see from the graph below,  if Cooper announced today, he would be later than winning candidates Thom Tilllis (2014), Ted Budd (2022) and Richard Burr (2004), as well as virtually every prominent candidate in 2022--Cheri Beasley, Pat McCrory, Jeff Jackson and Mark Walker. 

At the same time, if he got in today, he would get in before Erskine Bowles (who won the Democratic Primary in 2004), Cal Cunningham (who won the Democratic primary in 2020), Marjorie Eastman (2022), Jim Neal (2008), Elaine Marshall (who won the 2010 Democratic primary), Deborah Ross (who won the 2006 Democratic primary) Cal Cunningham (2010), and Kay Hagan, (who won the 2008 Senate election).

You may notice in the graph above that it seems like candidates are declaring earlier and earlier. And, to some degree, that's true. The graph below shows every candidate announcement from the table above (the dots) as a function of the election year (the horizontal axis) and the number of days between announcement and the primary (the vertical axis). Every year that passes, the average candidate announces about one week earlier than they did the year before.

What that means is that, if Roy Cooper announced today, he would be smack in the middle of all of the prominent non-incumbent announcements from 2004 to present, but, when comparing to more recent elections, he's a little late to the party.

Bottom Line

At the time of this writing (April 1, 2025), there are 336 days until the 2026 primary. In earlier years, this would have been a fairly normal time to declare, but in recent years, candidates for U.S. Senate in North Carolina have been declaring their candidacies earlier and earlier. 

If Cooper declares relatively soon, the timing won't be a problem. He's got the name recognition, the campaign know how, an existing statewide donor network, and the best Democratic consultants the Tar Heel State has to offer. But, if Cooper decides not to run--and, if he takes a while to make a decision--the short runway will put whoever is the eventual nominee a bit out of step with recent history.

Update 4/9/2025

Wiley Nickel has now officially announced that he is running (see the 4th paragraph above for some context). See below for an updated graph with Nickel's 2026 announcement represented as well.

 

 

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Dr. Christopher Cooper is the Madison Distinguished Professor of Political Science & Public Affairs and Director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. His most recent book is Anatomy of a Purple State: A North Carolina Politics Primer.