RALEIGH — The likely Republican nominee for North Carolina’s 2026 U.S. Senate race has dropped his first digital ad against his opponent, former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
Michael Whatley formally announced his bid July 31, three days after Cooper officially announced his intentions. Each is vying to replace Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who announced earlier this year he would not seek reelection.
The ad, titled “Hurricane Roy,” tells voters that Cooper can’t be trusted and opens with scenes of flooding, stating that when disasters hit the state, Cooper “failed to show up.”
“North Carolina families can’t trust Roy Cooper to have their back. In the U.S. Senate, he’d fail them again — just as he has time and time before,” the ad says before mentioning Cooper’s veto of a Helene-related relief bill.
Whatley’s ad also features a past clip of President Donald Trump while he was visiting the Helene-impacted areas in which he said he has “not heard good things about the governor” before shifting to Whatley’s efforts to help the Trump administration provide relief to North Carolina.
“By contrast, Michael Whatley helped President Trump deliver relief for North Carolina,” the ad continues. “He is fighting along President Trump, slashing government red tape and securing millions in critical relief funds. He is the proven fighter North Carolina needs.”
“Roy Cooper turned his back on North Carolinians when they needed him most,” said Whatley spokesperson Jonathan Felts in a press release. “President Trump and Michael Whatley are delivering accountability, speed, and action to North Carolina’s Helene recovery.”
North State Journal reached out to the Cooper campaign for comment about Whatley’s digital ad drop.
“Don’t take our word for it, Republicans think Michael Whatley has failed as FEMA recovery czar and over 100 Western North Carolinians have called for him to be replaced — nine months into the job and it’s clear Whatley can’t deliver for North Carolina,” a Cooper campaign spokesperson wrote in an email reply.
Federal funds and the FEMA Review Council
The state has estimated nearly $60 billion for Helene recovery, an increase from the initial estimate of $53 billion in late 2024.
More than $7.6 billion in combined federal and state aid had been directed to western North Carolina as of an Aug. 15 estimate by Gov. Josh Stein’s hurricane recovery office. That combined aid figure rose to $8.27 billion this month in Stein’s request to the federal government asking for $13.5 billion in additional aid.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development approved North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene Action Plan for a $1.4 billion Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery grant in April.
In the last two months, the Trump administration sent the state more than $228 million in federal recovery reimbursements, including $221 million in federal block grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for crop production losses not covered under crop insurance or other Hurricane Helene relief funds.
In August, the Environmental Protection Agency allocated $409.4 million to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality to help improve local drinking water utility infrastructure and upgrade systems to better withstand natural disasters.
On Sunday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced almost $48 million in new federal disaster relief funding for 49 projects for infrastructure repairs and community recovery needs.
Some of the delays in federal funds getting to the state have been attributed to agency reviews of funding requests, but also to a process instituted by Noem this past June requiring her to sign off on spending over $100,000.
Noem had made significant inroads earlier this year in clearing FEMA’s Hurricane Helene victim case backlog, decreasing the number of open cases by 80%. Noem made the case reduction claims during a visit to Swannanoa, where she also acknowledged “FEMA can often be slow and confusing and a lot of paperwork,” and that “we’re going to fix that.”
Whatley was named as a member of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Review Council on April 28. The council’s orders are to improve the way FEMA handles disasters and aid in dealing with the impacts of Hurricane Helene.
“I called for today’s FEMA Review Council to be hosted in Western North Carolina as an important recognition of the ongoing recovery efforts in the region as we approach the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene,” Whatley said in a Sept. 23 press release. “I am grateful that President Trump has appointed me to the Council and allowed me to work with his Administration to deliver for the people of North Carolina and help with recovery and rebuilding efforts across the state.”
A comment by Congressman Chuck Edwards (R-Flat Rock) was also included in Whatley’s release.
“I applaud President Trump for his concern about Western North Carolina and creating the FEMA review council to build a better FEMA,” Edwards said.
Edwards compiled a 62-page report earlier this year for the White House on recommendations to improve FEMA operations and what was needed to speed North Carolina’s recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene.
“I’m particularly appreciative of Michael Whatley‘s leadership, and of him bringing the council to Asheville to hear directly from us about the issues we have had, and the help we need next,” said Edwards.
Edwards recently voted in favor of the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act 2026, which contains billions for FEMA relief efforts, including those in North Carolina. However, in a recent interview with the Asheville Citizen-Times about recovery efforts, he expressed that the bureaucracy, inconsistent application of rules and communications breakdowns with the state were “extremely frustrating.”
Not everyone is happy with Whatley’s work for the council.
A Sept. 22 report by WFYY says around 126 western N.C. citizens want to see Whatley removed from the FEMA Review Council and are sending a letter to FEMA to that effect. The WFYY report quoted Anna Caldwell of Marion in McDowell County, who is the vice chair of that county’s Democratic Party.
Cooper’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency
Cooper has taken criticism for his administration’s handling of past hurricanes and for his efforts following Hurricane Helene, which impacted the state near the end of his second term as governor on Sept. 24, 2025.
Cooper’s hurricane relief agency, the Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR), found itself to be the subject of multiple legislative hearings going back to 2022. The hearings, held by a specially formed subcommittee on Hurricane Response and Recovery, centered on NCORR’s failure to get families back in homes following Hurricanes Matthew and Florence.
Hurricane Matthew hit the state in October 2016 and Hurricane Florence in September 2018.
In an oversight hearing held in January, NCORR’s new acting chief, Pryor Gibson, was questioned for more than four hours about the budget gap and the over 1,150 homes for victims of Hurricanes Matthew and Florence that were still uncompleted.
The operational issues with NCORR came to a head last year when its chief, Laura Hogshead, abruptly left the agency just two days after lawmakers had grilled her about the agency’s continued slow operation during a Nov. 18 oversight hearing.
During the same November 2024 hearing, NCORR’s budget gap of $175 million was discussed, with testimony by Hogshead putting the figure higher, at $221 million. The $175 million funding request had been included near the very end of Cooper’s Hurricane Helene relief proposal that was released during the month before the hearing.
When Stein took office as the state’s new governor, one of his first executive orders discarded NCORR and created an entirely new disaster recovery organization called GROW NC to deal with Helene recovery.
Hurricane Helene criticism and a veto
Criticism of Cooper’s disaster response carried over into Hurricane Helene, at least according to one western North Carolina resident who spoke directly with the Whatley campaign.
“I have lived in North Carolina most of my life,” said Leslie Nix of Hendersonville. “We were home when Hurricane Helene hit. It washed out our road as well as hundreds of trees on our property. We had to hike out and were displaced from our home for nearly two months.
“We heard nothing from Roy Cooper’s office. I realize it was the changing of the guards, voting season, but that should not matter or take precedence over the welfare of citizens of Western North Carolina. There is no way I want Roy Cooper in D.C. representing North Carolina.”
In the final stretch of his governorship, Cooper also held up a $664 million Hurricane Helene relief package by vetoing the measure.
The relief package had unanimously passed both chambers of the General Assembly. While the veto was eventually overridden, Cooper’s veto message had objected to the bill’s nonhurricane-related provisions, calling the legislation a “sham.”
Hurricane recovery failures a persistent theme
Whatley’s ad follows one published the day before by the National Republican Senatorial Committee also attacking Cooper over his hurricane response, but it included claims of Cooper “defending radical transgender ideology” and having “soft-on-crime” policies while governor.
Since launching his Senate campaign, Cooper has not shied away from the topic of hurricane recovery. He posted an ad attacking Whatley on the same topic in a Sept. 11 X post. The ad used a clip of Trump jokingly asking Whatley if he “can handle it” when it comes to Hurricane Helene recovery. The clip does not include any information on who created it or paid for it.
Not all of Cooper’s posts on hurricane recovery have been well-received, such as one X post made by Cooper on Aug. 21.
The post has images of Cooper walking around the town of Chimney Rock post-Helene and claiming “broken Washington” had left North Carolinians behind.
One of the top replies came from western N.C. resident Matt Van Swol, who was vocal about the Biden administration and Cooper administration immediately after Hurricane Helene hit.
Van Swol’s response refers to the day after Helene hit, claiming Cooper was at a “climate change fundraiser.” The New York Times reported Cooper was at the paper’s “Climate Forward Conference” during which Cooper told the host, “We’ve been smart about how we approach rebuilding” after a disaster, and said, “in some areas, you just shouldn’t build back.” He went on to say his administration had been able to convince people “buyouts are better.”
The Biden administration did receive criticism for its Hurricane Helene response, however, the administration did authorize some aid on Sept. 26, the day before the hurricane hit, and had set up three aid distribution sites in western North Carolina by Sept. 30. A serious problem in aid distribution was reaching victims as the mountainous terrain was an obstacle.
The North Carolina Senate race is expected to be the most expensive in state history, with some political strategists estimating spending to reach $1 billion.
