Kamala Harris endorsed Roy Cooper's NC Senate run, but Cooper has gone silent on his former close ally. NRSC video raises fresh questions.Former Vice President Kamala Harris used a stop on her North Carolina book tour earlier this month to lavish praise on Roy Cooper, the former North Carolina governor now running for U.S. Senate, even as Cooper himself has gone conspicuously silent about the woman he campaigned for, nearly ran with, and has called a close personal friend for nearly two decades.
A new video being released today by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) captures Harris’s April 14 remarks praising Cooper. The audio is drawn directly from Harris’s appearance, as reported by the Charlotte Observer; the accompanying visuals are an AI-generated recreation of the event produced by the NRSC.
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The release puts a spotlight on a question Cooper has so far refused to answer on the trail: Does he still support Kamala Harris? And does he welcome her support in his Senate race?
A Friendship Cooper Used to Brag About
Cooper’s silence is a sharp departure from the role he played for Harris in 2024, when he served as one of her most visible and enthusiastic surrogates. The two have a relationship that stretches back nearly twenty years to their time together as state attorneys general, a bond Cooper has openly bragged about on the national stage.
Among the highlights of that closeness:
- Cooper was one of Harris’s very first phone calls after she learned Joe Biden was dropping out of the 2024 race.
- He was on Harris’s short list for vice president and withdrew his name only late in the vetting process.
- He endorsed Harris the day Biden bowed out and went on to deliver a prime-time tribute to her at the Democratic National Convention.
- Harris is now publicly backing Cooper’s Senate run.
Yet since launching his Senate campaign, Cooper has avoided the subject entirely — declining to publicly defend Harris, decline her endorsement, or describe what role, if any, he wants her to play in a state she lost decisively in November.
A New North Carolina
The strategic problem for Cooper is hard to miss. The North Carolina he’s running in today does not look like the one that elected him governor.
For the first time in state history, Republicans now outnumber Democrats in voter registration. President Donald Trump has carried the state in all three of his presidential bids. And Cooper, who built his political brand by quietly outrunning the top of the ticket in down-ballot races, has never faced a genuinely competitive statewide contest — let alone one against the kind of nationalized, Trump-aligned electorate he’ll meet next November.
Against that backdrop, Harris’s enthusiastic praise — and her active backing of his campaign — is exactly the kind of association the Cooper team appears eager to keep at arm’s length.
The Questions Cooper Hasn’t Answered
The NRSC’s release reframes the awkwardness for Cooper into a set of questions he is going to be asked, repeatedly, between now and Election Day:
- Does Roy Cooper still support Kamala Harris?
- Does he welcome her endorsement and her presence on the campaign trail in North Carolina?
- If not, why won’t he say so?
- And if so, will he campaign with her?
Cooper’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Editor’s note: The video referenced in this story was produced by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The audio is taken from Harris’s April 14 book tour appearance in North Carolina; the accompanying visuals are an AI-generated recreation of the event.
