President Donald Trump appeared to concede defeat in a key U.S. Senate race with just 11 days to go before Election Day.
At a rally Tuesday night in Greenville, North Carolina, the president predicted that Republican Michael Whatley, his handpicked candidate for the open Senate seat, would lose to former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, WHQR reported.
“He’s going to become your senator, and it’s crazy,” Trump said of Cooper while discussing his record on violent crime and public safety.
It was the clearest sign yet that the North Carolina Senate seat held by retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis could be slipping out of reach for the GOP, potentially handing Democrats a pickup on Election Day. Cooper leads Whatley, the former Republican National Committee chairman, by nearly 10 points in the RealClearPolitics average, 50.6% to 40.7%. Republicans in Washington have pulled back resources, and Whatley’s campaign has gone dark on television.
Whatley’s last broadcast television ad aired October 7, according to political ad-tracking firm AdImpact. His campaign had no additional linear TV reservations scheduled through Election Day, November 3, according to NBC.
Whatley’s campaign previously said the pause was temporary and insisted it had the resources to compete, The Daily Wire reported. “It’s a temporary pause, and we’ll be back on the air shortly with our closing message,” campaign spokesman DJ Griffin said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is leading Democratic efforts to retake the majority, scored a recruiting victory with Cooper, who served two terms as governor and remains relatively popular. Whatley, by contrast, entered the race with little name recognition or established political infrastructure in a state Trump narrowly carried in all three of his presidential runs.
“The biggest obstacle to overcome for the Republicans was that Roy Cooper had an institutional identity established,” Paul Shumaker, a longtime Republican strategist in the state, told NBC. “And we had no Republican candidate with any type of identity established. The price point to get to where Cooper was was such a high bar, and it had to be done early.”
But for now, Trump is sticking by his guy.
“I’m here for two things. I want to tell you how bad Cooper is, and I want to tell you how great Michael Whatley is,” Trump said at the rally, calling Cooper a “super-liberal sociopath” and “a disgrace to this state.”
“You must get out and vote, and you have to vote Republican,” Trump told the North Carolina crowd.
With a 53-47 majority, Republicans can afford to lose no more than three seats before surrendering control of the Senate.
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