It's not hard to guess what side Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper is on. Not yours, North Carolina normies. His actions on Friday sealed that reputation forever; I mean, unless his dumbfoolery on voter ID, boys in girls' locker rooms, abortion limits, and the early release of Iryna Zarutska's murderer hadn't sealed his fate already.
Explaining that, "Private school vouchers are the biggest threat to public schools in decades,” Cooper not only vetoed a measure that would deny 54,000 kids on a waiting list the chance for a better education; he also spiked a bill that would keep them safer. Oh, yes, he did.
Cooper is running for the Democrat nomination for the open Senate seat, and he's leading in the polls. Oh, goodie, another leftist loon in the Senate. Unless, that is, people get activated against his lunacy.
His opponent, Republican Michael Whatley, says Cooper has an even worse record on public safety for giving multiple releases to 4,200 criminals, including Zarutska's murderer, who was re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-released from jail (that's 13 times if you're keeping score).
Iryna Zarutsaka is dead because Roy Cooper let her killer out of prison early.
— Whatley War Room (@whatleywarroom) August 21, 2026
His cashless bail and pre-trial release programs turned NC into a warzone for innocent victims.
Now, 24 other people were MURDERED by Cooper’s Criminals. We cannot allow this to continue. pic.twitter.com/BGNIUOTFRK
In addition to his slavish devotion to destructive teachers' unions — not children — with that veto, the governor halted plans to allow the sheriffs of the state to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The state legislature, led by Republicans, had been negotiating both bills with Democrats for months.
But Cooper, who for months now has taken campaign donations from a group devoted to open borders and anti-ICE efforts, batted away those efforts with his veto of the "mini budget" bill, hoping to solidify his endorsements from the far-left groups that apparently own him.
Cooper's not siding against ICE in reply to organic demands from North Carolinians, oh, no. With this veto, he has solidified his capture by a far-left information operation run by Norm Eisen, among others, to deny independently elected sheriffs the latitude to work with ICE. This is no mere opinion on his part. It's a plan.
As I wrote recently in the story, The Left Is Coming for Your County Sheriff:
The left's favorite billionaire oligarch, George Soros, has poured money into the campaigns for secretary of state and district attorney candidates over the years in an effort to place anti-law enforcement and anti-incarceration activists in control of elections and law and order—the very foundations of civil society. Now, the left is coming for your county sheriff—the last local law man or woman elected to office by the people.
This odious idea is happening mostly along the West Coast, Messed Coast™ in San Francisco, Riverside County, and California cities, but it's also happening in Arizona, the woke areas of Prince William and Loudoun counties in Virginia, East Baton Rouge, La., and North Carolina.
...The States United Democracy Center, which used to be known as the Voter Protection Program, was created in part by Norm Eisen, who was one of the architects of the impeachment and lawfare pogrom against President Donald Trump. He and his friends started the hilariously and ironically named Voter Protection Program to stop anyone from talking about the Democrats' 2020 election, ah, activities. It claims to work with Georgetown Law School.
Get it?
Cooper's not about going after bad guys and deporting them. He's not about jailing bad guys, either. Rather, Roy Cooper's about jailing students in classrooms in substandard schools and denying their parents the ability of choosing better ones using their tax dollars.
I asked Perplexity to build me a graph of all the ways in which Cooper has flushed decent ideas down the toilet over the years.
You'll want to sit down for this.
Republicans with the National Republican Senate Committee said today that, "For 40 years, radical leftist Roy Cooper fought to protect criminal illegals, including murderers and rapists turning North Carolina into a sanctuary state."
After reading this, I imagine a lot of North Carolinians will agree the dude needs to go.
They should vote for Michael Whatley. He may not be your perfect candidate, but unlike Cooper, at least he likes North Carolinians.
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