As polls narrow, Cooper gets specific on how he'd lower costs if elected to US Senate

WILSON — Roy Cooper, the Democratic candidate for North Carolina’s open U.S. Senate seat, again promised to “make stuff cost less” Tuesday during a campaign stop in Wilson, doubling down on his affordability message as he faces tighter polling and attacks from his Republican opponent.

At a cafe in the eastern North Carolina city, the former two-term governor said that, if elected, he would work to reduce costs by addressing President Donald Trump’s foreign policy decisions — including tariffs and the war in Iran — that Cooper blames for rising prices.

“Because of that war and because of the lack of strategy, prices have gone up, gas has gone up, diesel has gone up,” Cooper said.

Cooper’s event, one of several centered on the cost of living, comes as Republican candidate Michael Whatley increasingly targets tax, health care and energy policies Cooper supported during his two terms as governor and his time in the legislature. Whatley says those policies increased financial hardships for North Carolinians.

“Candidate Cooper is campaigning against Governor Cooper’s record of making stuff cost more,” D.J. Griffin, a spokesman for Whatley, said in a statement. “Candidate Cooper says ‘make stuff cost less,’ but Governor Cooper always made stuff cost more.”

Griffin said Whatley is fighting to help working families “make more and keep more of their money.”

Cooper has led Whatley in several polls, including some that showed a double-digit advantage. More recent polling, however, has indicated a closer race.

Cooper led Whatley by 4 percentage points, 48% to 44%, in a recent Public Policy Polling survey. Enough voters remained undecided that either candidate had a realistic path to victory.

Affordability has emerged as one of the race’s central themes as North Carolinians, like people across the country, grapple with costs rising faster than wages. In a battleground state where statewide races can be decided by razor-thin margins and support from unaffiliated voters, messaging on the issue could prove decisive.

Nearly three-quarters of North Carolinians said rising prices had caused them to cut back on regular purchases in the weeks before July 6, when findings from a Catawba College-YouGov survey were released.