In his last speech as governor, Roy Cooper reflects on past and hints at future

Speaking in Rocky Mount, Cooper discussed the accomplishments of his administration, including Medicaid expansion, job growth, and support for the state’s public schools.

January 1, 2025 will be the first time in 13,829 days that Roy Cooper won’t hold elected office in North Carolina. 

Cooper was first elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1986, when he was just a 29-year-old attorney in Nash County. Over the past four decades, he’s served as the Senate Majority Leader in the General Assembly, four terms as the state’s attorney general, and two terms as governor. 

Cooper has never lost an election, but will be term-limited out of the governor’s mansion in the new year.  

On Wednesday, Cooper gave his final public address as governor at Nash County Community College in his hometown of Rocky Mount, where he highlighted his proudest accomplishments as governor and gave a wink and a nod to what might be ahead for him. 

Cooper celebrates Medicaid Expansion

Upon taking office in January 2017, Cooper sought to expand Medicaid unilaterally, which sparked opposition from the Republican-controlled legislature. The legislature and former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory had refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, despite the fact that it was almost entirely federally funded. North Carolina was one of only 19 states that had not expanded Medicaid at the time.

“The prospect of getting healthcare for hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians was too important. I knew that passing Medicaid expansion would be the working families bill of the decade,” Cooper said, reflecting on his thought process.

Republicans in the General Assembly filed a lawsuit against Cooper, arguing he didn’t have the authority to expand Medicaid, citing a prior bill they passed preventing the governor from having the power to make the decision.

After years of obstruction and false starts, Republicans finally changed their tune last year. In March of 2023, Cooper, joined by the Republicans who previously sued him, signed Medicaid expansion into law. 

“I went from getting sued in my first few weeks in office by Republican legislative leaders for trying to expand Medicaid, to welcoming those same leaders to the mansion on a beautiful spring day six years later,” Cooper said on Wednesday. 

The law took effect last December, when Cooper handed the first Medicaid expansion card to Penny Wingard, a Charlotte breast cancer survivor.

“On December 1st of last year, I handed Penny the state’s first Medicaid expansion card, with tears in her eyes and in mine,” Cooper said this week.

Since then, over 600,000 North Carolinians have enrolled in the expansion program, giving them access to vital, potentially life-saving healthcare. 

One of the main beneficiaries of the expansion program has been rural North Carolina. To date, around 80,000 people in rural Eastern North Carolina have enrolled in Medicaid expansion, and rural counties such as Swain, Robeson, and Edgecombe counties have seen over 20% of their residents enroll in the program.

“Medicaid expansion was always about the hard-working North Carolinians who desperately needed and deserved access to healthcare,” Cooper said.

For Cooper, fighting for public schools is personal 

Education has always been a core issue for Cooper — and a personal one. Cooper’s mother, Beverly, was a public school teacher. 

“My mom was a public school teacher, right here in Nash County,” he said on Wednesday.

Cooper detailed how former students of hers still talk to him about her and sing her praises.

“‘Your mom was the best teacher I ever had,’” he recalled people telling him. “That is the impression that great teachers leave.” 

Cooper praised the high-quality teachers in the state, telling the audience, “North Carolina has more national board certified teachers than any state in America.”

Cooper has consistently fought for higher teacher pay, and during his time in office teacher salaries have increased by 19%.

Cooper also touted the finish line grants policy he pushed for early in his governorship, which helped community college students with costs such as car repairs and healthcare costs so they could  afford to finish their programs.

“It worked so well to help keep students in school, that the legislature began to put it in the budget, and now more than 16,000 of these grants have helped students cross the finish line,” Cooper said.

He also highlighted the high graduation rates in North Carolina’s public schools. 

“In the past eight years, North Carolina’s public schools have achieved the highest graduation rate in history, 87%,” he said to applause.

But Cooper also warned that threats to public education persist, citing Republicans’ private school voucher expansion.

“Right-wing extremists and for-profit schools have peddled a false narrative that our public schools are failing. Using that lie to justify their programs to rob public taxpayer money from public schools and send it to private schools through vouchers,” he said. 

Earlier this month, Republicans in the legislature overrode Cooper’s veto of HB 10, committing the state to spend $5.8 billion over the next decade on the state’s private school voucher program.

Cooper, who designated 2024 to be “Year of the Public Schools,” emphasized their importance to North Carolina’s future. 

“Quality public education is the key to our state’s success,” he said.

Cooper reflects on economic accomplishments

During Cooper’s tenure as governor, the state has created over 640,000 jobs. In addition to creating jobs, the governor says he wanted the state to lead in the clean energy revolution.

“I told my team I wanted to grow our economy while protecting our environment. The best way to do that was clean energy.” 

In 2018, Cooper signed Executive Order 80, which committed the state to combating climate change and created a clean energy plan for the state. 

“The plan itself generated worldwide attention for North Carolina, helping us to attract clean energy businesses with great paying jobs,” Cooper said. 

During Cooper’s tenure, companies created thousands of clean energy jobs in the state, including 5,000 in Randolph County as part of a $13.9 billion investment from Toyota to produce electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

The EV sector is expected to continue its ascent, with sales increasing by 68% nationally between 2021 and 2022. Cooper touted North Carolina’s role in this surging industry. 

“The supply chain for components to make them is quickly becoming a ‘Made in North Carolina’ industry. We have a claim to every link in the supply chain. From silicon chips to the electric battery, all the way to the charging stations.”

As of this year, North Carolina ranks 9th in the country for clean energy jobs, with 110,000 jobs in the sector.

“The investments we’ve made today have cemented our place as the epicenter of the clean energy economy,” Cooper said.

What’s next? 

While Cooper will be a private citizen in just a few weeks time, there is already speculation that he could challenge incumbent Republican Senator Thom Tillis in the 2026 midterm election.

The governor did not directly address his future during the speech, but he did signal this isn’t the final chapter of his long career in public service.

“We’ve built a North Carolina that’s healthier, better educated, with more money in people’s pockets,” Cooper said. “And we stand ready to welcome prosperity with open arms for generations to come. Strong and great. But we’re not done. I’m not done.” 

Whatever the future holds, an emotional Cooper choked up towards the end of the speech as he reflected on his time as governor.

“For the last eight years, getting to lead the state I love so much has been an extraordinary privilege, challenging, humbling, and the best job I’ve ever had, and valued every day.”