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Cooper, Whatley campaigns both highlight Helene recovery challenges in 2026 U.S. Senate race

Flooding from Tropical Storm Helene
N.C. DOT
Flooding from Tropical Storm Helene

The leading candidates in North Carolina's 2026 U.S. Senate race are both arguing that the other is failing Western North Carolina's recovery from the impacts of last year's Tropical Storm Helene.

In the latest salvo, former Gov. Roy Cooper's campaign launched a new ad Tuesday featuring local and state media coverage tying leading Republican candidate Michael Whatley to the Helene response before highlighting frustrations around the slow pace of federal recovery funding.

"Michael Whatley is failing Western North Carolina," says a voiceover at the end of the new ad. The Cooper campaign will target western North Carolina with the digital ad.

The Whatley campaign has launched similar attacks at Cooper, pointing to the then-governor's veto of legislation late last year that moved some state money into a Helene relief fund but also overhauled the powers of several Council of State offices.

Cooper, a Democrat, was North Carolina's governor when Helene devastated Western North Carolina last fall. At the time, Whatley was serving as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

After being sworn into office for a second time, President Donald Trump visited Asheville and said he was putting Whatley "in charge of making sure everything goes well" with Helene recovery.

Trump also appointed Whatley to the FEMA Review Council, a 12-member group meant to evaluate the emergency management agency's capabilities and recommend potential changes. That group has held three public meetings and, last month, held a listening session in Fletcher.

In a Sept. 23 interview with WLOS-TV, Whatley was asked about his role overseeing Helene recovery and how he thought the recovery was faring. Whatley said the recovery is "going really well" but acknowledged there's more work to do.

"What I want to do is, when we find needs here in North Carolina, is to be able to take those needs back to the relevant folks — whatever department or agency it's going to be, or even the White House — and make sure that we get conversations in place. And those conversations are leading to results here on the ground," Whatley said.

Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, has persistently called on Congress to appropriate additional funds to North Carolina and on the Trump Administration to release to the state billions of dollars in funds that were awarded in disaster recovery legislation passed late last year.

North Carolina's recovery appropriations, Stein has argued, are lagging well behind those other states have received after large-scale storms.

This week, Stein highlighted more than $1.5 billion the state is awaiting in Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds. That's money that homeowners in flood-prone areas can use to elevate their homes or sell them to move to higher ground.

"My team and I are asking FEMA, 'What is the hold up?'" Stein said Monday.

Whatley campaign's effort

The Whatley campaign focused on hurricane recovery in its first digital ad, which it called "Hurricane Roy."

The ad claims that Cooper "failed to show up" and highlighted his veto of last year's Senate Bill 382. That was legislation that started out focused on funding Helene recovery and quickly turned into a wide-ranging effort to shift power from offices won by Democrats in the 2024 election to offices won by Republicans.

Roy Cooper and Michael Whatley
Roy Cooper and Michael Whatley

Whatley's ad also shows a clip of then-candidate Donald Trump saying, "I'm not hearing good things about the governor," referring to then-Governor Cooper.

The ad goes on to claim that Whatley is helping remove bureaucratic measures that slow the response and playing a role in securing relief funds.

Whaley is not the only candidate who has announced his intention to run in the GOP primary.

Don Brown, a former Navy JAG officer and former federal prosecutor, is also seeking the Republican nomination. WUNC previously reported that Brown supports abolishing FEMA and replacing the agency with a military division that would respond to disasters with helicopters and other assets.

Will voters care in 2026?

Both Cooper and Whatley running ads targeting hurricane recovery raises the question of whether it will matter to North Carolina voters when they go to the polls in next November's mid-term elections.

That could depend on where those voters live in the state, Michael Bitzer, the director of Catawba College's Center for North Carolina Politics and Public Service, said in an interview.

In western North Carolina, Bitzer said, "This could be a prime issue and concern when it comes to the midterm election and to the U.S. Senate race. But it's still a year out from the election, and we generally know that things like economics and the economy are usually front and center."

In September, a High Point University poll asked 950 North Carolinians about which entities they thought had helped or hindered the Helene recovery.

Of those polled:

  • 25% said FEMA had helped a lot, 39% said it had helped some, 24% said it had not helped much at all and 12% were unsure.
  • 23% said Trump had helped a lot, 24% said he had helped some, 40% said he had not helped much at all and 14% were unsure.
  • 13% said U.S. Congress had helped a lot, 32% said it had helped some, 37% said it hadn't helped much at all and 18% were unsure.
  • 25% said Stein had helped a lot, 35% said he had helped some, 18% said he hadn't helped much at all and 21% weren't sure.

Those poll results indicate, Bitzer said, that North Carolinians are more likely to point the finger for slow Helene recovery at national politicians and dynamics than at the state level.

If recovery is still slow a year from now, he said, that could be a problem Republicans need to overcome. That's partly because Trump openly campaigned against FEMA and the Biden Administration in the days immediately following Helene in the run-up to the 2024 election and then saying he is going to make the disaster response agency more effective.

Bitzer said, "If, a year out, people are still wondering, 'Where is FEMA?' for aid and assistance, I think probably falls more on Republican lines because it was they who brought up the issue to begin with."

Adam Wagner is an editor/reporter with the NC Newsroom, a journalism collaboration expanding state government news coverage for North Carolina audiences. The collaboration is funded by a two-year grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Adam can be reached at awagner@ncnewsroom.org