Republicans Confront Growing Doubts in North Carolina and Georgia Senate Races as Midterms Near

What happened

Senior Republicans are increasingly acknowledging that two pivotal Senate races, in North Carolina and Georgia, are slipping from the party's grasp less than six weeks before the November 2026 midterms, according to a CNN report based on more than a dozen interviews with campaign officials, senators and operatives. The report describes growing recognition inside the party that the contests "are looking less competitive than the party once anticipated," with decisions looming on whether to keep investing in them. In North Carolina, Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley is running against former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper for the seat being vacated by Sen. Thom Tillis; in Georgia, Rep. Mike Collins is trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. Both Republicans trail in polling, per the report.

The most blunt assessment came from longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove, who said Saturday at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin: "We're not going to win either one." A concrete sign of retrenchment followed: the GOP super PAC Old North Action trimmed its North Carolina advertising reservations by about a third last week, which CNN described as "one of the clearest signs yet that the party may be losing confidence in the race." Whatley responded that he feels "very comfortable" he will have the money he needs.

The spending debate has split Senate Republicans. Tillis said, "You spend the money where we get Republicans elected… you don't spend the money just because you want to help somebody." Sen. John Cornyn, who headlined a Monday fundraiser with former President George W. Bush for candidates in other states, from which Collins and Whatley were excluded, said: "Here we are, what, 40 days out? … I don't think there is a lot that can be done." Cornyn also blamed President Donald Trump for the North Carolina situation, saying "the president basically went after [Tillis], and now we've got somebody who is not as well-known and he's struggling."

Party leadership pushed back. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said, "We are erecting a big wall around all of our candidates… There are headwinds we are facing in all the races around the country," and headlined a Thursday-night Atlanta fundraiser for Collins with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that reportedly raised more than $400,000. NRSC Chairman Sen. Tim Scott rejected deprioritization claims on X with a single word: "Hogwash!" NRSC spokesman Nick Puglia said Republicans "will continue working to expose their far-left records to permanently retire them," referring to Ossoff and Cooper. The Collins campaign, for its part, circulated a memo dated Monday arguing that 1 in 10 Georgia voters are "still up for grabs," mostly 2024 Trump voters who are not yet backing Collins "mainly because they do not have a firm opinion of him."

Why it matters

The stakes are unusually high for a pair of individual races. North Carolina is a state Trump has won three times, and a Republican loss there would hand Democrats one of the four flips they need to retake the Senate majority. The party and its allies are also spending well over $100 million shoring up Texas, a sign that the defensive map has widened beyond the two most contested states. Republican groups had previously reserved more than $50 million in North Carolina advertising for the final eight weeks, according to The Sunday Guardian Live, citing CNN, and at least one High Point University poll put the Whatley-Cooper contest within its margin of error. How the party allocates its remaining money in the closing weeks could determine whether either race stays competitive.

How it is being covered

The story is carried by 12 outlets, with a heavily centre-weighted split of 9 percent left, 82 percent centre and 9 percent right, according to ground.news. Factuality ratings are strong, with 9 of 11 rated outlets in the high or very high categories. The ground.news data also flag a blindspot: right-leaning outlets are largely not covering the story, accounting for only 9 percent of coverage.

What to watch

Watch whether Old North Action and other outside groups restore or further cut their North Carolina reservations, the clearest public signal of internal confidence. Watch also whether the NRSC follows through on Thune's pledge to defend "all of our candidates," and whether the Collins campaign's argument that roughly 10 percent of Georgia voters remain persuadable is borne out by late polling. Any movement in the Whatley-Cooper race relative to its margin of error in university polling will be closely read by both parties.

By the numbers

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