Should Harris Go with Roy Cooper?
It’s unclear if North Carolina is truly winnable for Vice President Harris in the fall. And the Tarheel State is not as important as Pennsylvania. But this election cannot be won with just Pennsylvania. Both campaigns must devise multiple ways to 270 electoral votes that extend beyond Pennsylvania.
A strategy around winning North Carolina that involves selecting Governor Roy Cooper (D-NC) as a running mate, is probably the most aggressive route to victory for Democrats. With our baked in national electorate, a North Carolina based strategy would definitely be battling on Trump perceived turf. North Carolina is the one core battleground state that Donald Trump carried twice. But on the other hand, Trump got less than 50% there both times, and he figures to end up well under 50% again with stronger third party candidates than either previous election. He only carried the state by less than one and a half percent in 2020, or about 74,000 votes. The state is rapidly growing, becoming more cosmopolitan, younger, and in many ways the portion of the electorate there that is available to Harris, resembles her more than it does President Biden or Trump.
If the Harris campaign finds they are behind nationally, or that in a close national election her value add over Biden is most likely to show itself in more diverse, younger and more cosmopolitan parts of the battleground, or that they are ahead and able to take the fight to territory perceived to favor Trump, then the North Carolina strategy may make the most sense.
This might be seen as a case for North Carolina, in either a cold, medium, or hot scenario.
If Vice President Harris could turn North Carolina into the Georgia of 2024, and flip it despite a perception that Trump will sweep the south, partly by choosing popular outgoing Governor Roy Cooper (D-NC) as her Vice President, she would probably win the presidential election.
Particularly a scenario where Harris carried North Carolina and Pennsylvania, puts her just one battleground state (excluding Nevada which wouldn’t be quite enough by itself), away from the 270 threshold. And there is new evidence that Pennsylvania is trending in the right direction for her. A new Fox News Poll has Harris leading Donald Trump by two points in a multi-candidate race with Kennedy, Stein and West. And it finds that her approval rating in the state has improved significantly. Pennsylvania may be a state that can be won without using the important chit of the Vice Presidential selection to do it. Biden is strong there, and popular Governor Shapiro can help even if he is not on the ticket.
With Donald Trump having just staged a rally in Charlotte, that’s a good reminder that both campaigns would have to take North Carolina seriously if it is perceived to have tightened. Put differently, Donald Trump would struggle mightily to get to 270 electoral votes without North Carolina. He’d have to camp out his money and his time there, in order to ensure that he wins it. That’s time he can’t spend in the Upper Midwest, GA AZ and NV.
What Cooper’s theory of the case might be.
- Harris Helps. With Biden leading the ticket, Democrats were probably not going to make up the point-and-a-half on Donald Trump in North Carolina, which was his margin of victory in 2020. But Harris, as a younger woman of color with somewhat better approval ratings than Biden has, is a better fit for North Carolina Democrats and gettable independents/soft Republicans there. It’s important to make up for potential Harris vulnerabilities with other demographics in the Upper Midwest, by putting the New South’s younger, more diverse and cosmopolitan electorate in play. Arguably, the strategic point from an electoral college perspective of changing candidates at this late stage, is to be able to go after a state like North Carolina. Harris may have some downside among demographics in the Upper Midwest among white seniors for instance, that were a part of Biden’s prodigious 2020 victory. It’s important for Harris to work towards her strengths as a candidate, rather than just trying to recreate Biden’s seven million vote margin in the way that he did.
Biden had Harris on the ticket to help where he is weaker, just as Obama had Biden. Harris needs to think about who can do something similar for her — that could well be someone like Cooper.
2. Cooper’s coalition in North Carolina might be a little bigger than Trump’s. It’s Roy Cooper (2.83 million votes), not Donald Trump (2.76 million votes), who got the most North Carolina votes in 2020. Cooper outperformed Trump in 2016 also. Cooper has never lost an election. There are some transplanted moderate Republicans there, who are generally on the higher end of the economic scale, who do not reflect the old style culturally conservative North Carolina Republican Party. Some of them are gettable against Trump-Vance. Some of them have a history voting for Cooper. Obama won the state once in 2008, so this is not merely theoretical.
Cooper has invaluable experience running successful campaigns there. He might be able to find Cooper Democrats in more rural parts of the state that are otherwise likely to elude Harris. Democratic strongholds in North Carolina may be relatively easier to engage too — concentrated in North Carolina’s cities and college towns, in residential buildings and neighborhoods that are concentrated. Republican heavy areas in the western mountains and near the state’s vast eastern coastline are spread out. The shoe leather work of campaigning may be more challenging for Trump and his campaign team in North Carolina. It takes time for Trump to travel to Waynesville, NC to do a campaign event. It’s easier for Harris to do one near in Durham, or Cooper to do one in Greensboro. The same topographical factors that have enabled Republicans in the state to divvy up the state over and over again and create a majority of Republican districts, can make the state easier for Democrats to meet their targets in a national election.
3. Cooper might help Harris a small amount in Virginia and Georgia. The two states have four Democratic senators. Virginia is a state that already leans to Harris, but a choice like Cooper could help her put it away. If Harris’s polling numbers struggle more than they are hoping, a state like Virginia could remain competitive, forcing the Democratic ticket to spend considerable money and time there. The state has a Republican Governor. It cannot be taken for granted. From tobacco farmer roots, Cooper may measure well against other VP options, for helping Harris in Virginia.
Georgia is a swing state where Trump has led Biden for months, but Harris and Cooper may be a good combination for turning out the Atlanta metropolitan area and more rural parts of the state with high African American populations. Harris might not be able to beat Trump in Georgia without a Vice Presidential nominee such as Cooper, a southern moderate governor.
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So in a cold scenario, where Harris is struggling to solidify blue leaning states like Virginia, Cooper may add value. And in a hot scenario, where Harris and Cooper are running well nationally, and competing hard for Georgia, they can try to recreate the Senator Warnock-Senator Ossoff 2020 playbook. Those two candidates helped turn different parts of the electorate out for one another. That means Atlanta’s metropolitan area, and more rural parts of Georgia with large numbers of African American voters. Even if they struggle to get over the top in Georgia, they could force Trump-Vance to spend their time and money there.
4. With North Carolina in the Harris column, there are many ways to victory:
If Cooper could help Harris win North Carolina, it’s probably going to be a big election night for Democrats. Assuming that the safe, and the blue leaning states that Trump has already lost twice — ME(3 of 4) NM NH MN and VA go to Harris, that creates a Democratic baseline of 226 electoral votes. That leaves a need for at least 44 more.
Arguably the hardest of the 7 state (PA NC GA MI AZ WI NV, plus 1 Nebraska electoral vote for the Omaha area) battleground for Harris, North Carolina is worth 16 electoral votes. If a Harris-Cooper ticket were to win it, that’s 242.
Ways to get the last 28 electoral votes:
PA and any one of WI AZ GA MI
GA and MI
GA AZ and NE(2)
GA and any two battleground states
MI and any two battleground states
AZ NV WI and NE(2)
AZ and any two other battleground states
WI NE(2) and any two other battleground states
NV NE(2) and any two other battleground states
So if Harris were to win North Carolina, she could win the presidency without all three, or without two of the three Upper Midwest states depending on how she fares in the West and GA. She could lose both Western states of AZ and NV, and also lose the Omaha area NE seat, and still win the election if she fares better in the rest of the battleground. If she finds she is ahead in any single battleground state, and she adds NC to that, she gives herself many ways to victory. She also has some 269–269 scenarios that North Carolina contributes to. It’s also worth doing some preliminary work on Trump leaning Florida and the Trump leaning Maine 2nd congressional district to see if they might be made competitive. Governor Cooper might compare favorably with other vice presidential possibilities in these two places as well.
Cooper also has downside. At 67, he is older than others on the short list. He is untested nationally, a low key lawyer and politician who has not had to serve as an aggressive attacker of his opposition, as is often the role of the Vice Presidential nominee. North Carolina also might be seen as a bit of a luxury for Harris; the data may show that there are easier paths to victory for her. Also, choosing Cooper might affect a competitive North Carolina gubernatorial race to choose Cooper’s successor.
He is not as energizing as Senator Kelly (D-AZ), his state is less crucial and less winnable than Governor Shapiro’s (D-PA), and he is less helpful at crystallizing the election around crucial women’s rights issues than Governor Whitmer (D-MI). A worst case scenario that is not difficult to imagine, is that she chooses Cooper, and North Carolina never becomes as competitive as a few other states in the battleground.
It’s a tough decision.
Governor Cooper has a case to be made that he can add things to the ticket that nobody else on the short list can match. There may also be intangible factors at play here — Harris and Cooper served together as state Attorneys General and know each other well. It’s important to have a good working partner, both in a campaign, and in the White House if voters choose you. The former AG Cooper might help her frame the election as the rule of law versus the Trump criminal enterprise as well. Vice President Harris is going to have to decide if what Cooper brings to the table is what she needs most.
