He won’t be vice president, so what’s next for North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper?
Roy Cooper has five months left as governor, and this week he took himself out of the running to be the next vice president of the United States. But that doesn’t mean he’s done with politics.
Options for Cooper’s next act could include:
A Cabinet position;
A 2026 Senate run;
A 2028 gubernatorial race;
The private sector.
Those around Cooper say that anyone who tells you they know what he is doing next is wrong because even Cooper hasn’t made up his mind yet. He isn’t being coy. A decision just hasn’t been made.
“Cooper is someone who’s always been driven by public service, driven by an ability to help people and to improve people’s lives,” said Morgan Jackson, Cooper’s top adviser. “I think he’ll continue to look for ways to do that.”
But until his term as governor expires on Jan. 1 — state law prevented him for running for a third term — Cooper has something else on his mind.
“Roy Cooper is focused on electing Josh Stein as governor, turning North Carolina blue for Kamala Harris, and breaking the supermajorities in the legislature, as he finishes out his term,” Jackson said.
Here is a breakdown of some of his potential options.
Cabinet positions
On June 28, President Joe Biden held his last rally in North Carolina before ending his campaign. And during that rally he teased that a long-suspected rumor about Cooper could be true.
“When I’m reelected again, with your help, I want you to know that I’m not promising not to take Roy away from North Carolina,” Biden shouted from the stage, with Cooper standing nearby.
As the attorney general of North Carolina, Cooper worked with Biden’s late son, Beau, when he was the attorney general of Delaware.
“He is truly, truly one of the deans of the attorneys general in America and a good friend of mine,” Beau said in 2012. “I followed his lead on a number of fronts.”
The same job put Cooper in a position to work with Harris, then attorney general of California.
Asher Hildebrand, a political science professor at Duke University, said Cooper would be a “great candidate” for Harris to consider as U.S. attorney general.
“I would be pretty surprised if Merrick Garland continues to serve as attorney general for too long,” Hildebrand told McClatchy in an interview.
Hildebrand served as chief of staff for Rep. David Price, a Democrat, and as director of policy and research for former President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign in North Carolina. He said during his interview he has no inside knowledge of what has been offered to Cooper or what Cooper is thinking about doing.
“That’s again, speculation,” Hildebrand said of Garland, “but I think he’s frustrated enough Democrats and with Harris coming in, and given her own background as an attorney general and a prosecutor, I would see that as a prime opportunity for a change. Cooper would be a great candidate for that position.”
Cooper’s relationship with Harris quickly put him on the list of contenders for her vice president. They have worked together throughout the 2024 election to flip North Carolina blue, with Harris about to make her eighth visit this year to the state next week.
But Hildebrand said he’s not sure Cooper taking the position of attorney general is a good idea for the governor.
“If he were to decide not to run for Senate and just to continue his service in the federal government, that might be a very good role for him, but it’s a role that carries with it today a whole lot of sort of political baggage, in a way that it didn’t used to even a decade ago,” Hildebrand said.
Hildebrand said whether Cooper takes a Cabinet position like attorney general or education or transportation secretary depends on his election plans.
“He’s got enough of a profile as an education governor and certainly knows the landscape of transportation policy and so I think he could step into any of those,” Hildebrand said. ”To me, again, the key decision is, is he going to run for Senate in 2026? If so, I’m not sure it makes sense to take any Cabinet position because they want to focus on preparing for a successful and hard-fought campaign.”
Senate 2026
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, a sophomore in the Senate, is up for reelection in 2026. He has yet to announce his plans for reelection, though Rep. Wiley Nickel, a Democrat who has been drawn out of his district, has already announced his plans to run against Tillis.
Tillis is seen as one of the Senate’s more moderate Republicans and has worked across the aisle to pass policy on gun rights and LGBTQ+ issues. And those policy issues have hurt him within his own party, which in turn censured him.
Hildebrand said regardless of who wins the presidency, Cooper is a tremendous recruit to run for a Senate seat. But, Hildebrand added, if Trump wins, that bodes well for a strong Democratic win in a Senate race in 2026.
As for a Tillis-Cooper matchup, Hildebrand said it would be a very competitive race between “two of North Carolina’s most powerful and most respected leaders.”
But he added that Tillis has to overcome the hostility he’s facing from the far-right part of his party in a primary.
Governor 2028
Cooper also has the option of running again for governor in 2028. State law only precludes someone from holding the office for more than two consecutive terms, but that doesn’t prevent him from running again after a break.
If Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, wins this year’s election for governor against Stein, a Democrat, then Democrats will need to recruit a challenger in 2028.
Hildebrand doesn’t see Cooper filling that role.
“I think if Josh Stein does not win in 2024 then I think we could expect a pretty broad field of candidates to run in 2028,” Hildebrand said. “I know there’s speculation, but I certainly see no indication coming from the folks around him that he wants to return to the governor’s mansion instead of pursuing other forms of public service that would be different and exciting to him.”
He also predicts Stein winning.
Other options
Hildebrand added that if Cooper chooses not to run for Senate, there are a lot of other options available to the governor, from a cabinet position to an ambassadorship.
Cooper could also return to the private sector as a lobbyist, attorney or board member.
Hildebrand said he would selfishly love to see Cooper in a classroom.
“I think the threshold decision that he has to make, if he hasn’t already made it, is whether to run for Senate or not, and I think that’s going to sort of set the parameters of the types of roles that he might take on once he leaves office. If the answer is no, then the sky’s the limit.”
This story was originally published August 2, 2024 at 5:30 AM with the headline "He won’t be vice president, so what’s next for North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper?."