Four months before the midterm elections, a majority of North Carolinians disapprove of President Donald Trump while Democrats hold solid leads in several key races, a new poll shows.
This snapshot of voter sentiment is too early to mean anything, but it shows that independents are moving away from many Republican candidates, and suggests that North Carolinians are holding state Republicans accountable for soaring prices and Trump’s war in Iran.
The Catawba College–YouGov poll, conducted in early June, shows former NC Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, with a 14-point lead over Michael Whatley, his Republican opponent in the race for North Carolina’s open US Senate seat.
Unaffiliated voters make up the biggest voting group in the state, and independents support Cooper over Whatley by much larger margins, Michael Bitzer, director of Catawba College’s Center for North Carolina Politics & Public Service, said in a press release announcing the poll.
“Cooper’s advantage is not simply a function of Democratic support,” Bitzer said.
“His lead is being driven by independents, who currently support him by more than two-to-one over Whatley. That independent vote can often be a decisive factor in statewide North Carolina elections,” he said.
Independent voters are also the reason Trump’s approval is so low in North Carolina.
The poll shows that 54% of overall respondents disapproved of Trump, but that figure jumps to 67% of independents.
“The major factor for the president’s underwater status [is] Independents,” the Catawba press release said.
The online survey was conducted by YouGov of 1,000 weighted North Carolinians from June 1 to 10, 2026, and has a margin of error of +/-3.83 percent.
The poll suggests that Democrats are benefitting from the growing anti-Trump sentiment, even in a state that has voted for him every time he was on the presidential ballot. A plurality of respondents said they disapproved of the war in Iran, and more than 70% of Democrats and Independents said Trump had no clear plan for victory.
“This year appears to be setting up as a classic midterm environment: a referendum on the president and his party,” Bitzer said.
“Cooper has a commanding portion of those North Carolinians who disapprove of the president, which is a majority of likely voters so far,” he added.
The other races
Cooper is not the only Democrat leading their Republican opponents.
In the one NC Supreme Court race on the ballot, respondents favored NC Justice Anita Earls, a Democrat, over Republican Sarah Stevens by 5 percentage points (40 to 35.)
And in a question about which party voters preferred to control the NC House, respondents chose Democrats over Republicans by 6 percentage points. Democrats hold an 8-point advantage for the NC State Senate, the poll showed.
The poll also shows that 53% of respondents approve of Democratic Governor Josh Stein.
Cooper’s lead over Whatley is big, but nearly a quarter of independents said they are undecided, more than enough to make the race razor-thin if they all break toward Whatley.
Copper has led every poll since he and Whatley announced their candidacies. The latest poll comes amid renewed scrutiny over Whatley’s support of Harvey West Jr., a GOP official who served six years in prison after being accused of raping two 14-year-old girls and a 16-year-old girl in 1999.
Women backed Cooper by 20 percentage points, the poll said.
