'On the short list': 5 reasons Roy Cooper could be a vice presidential pick with Biden out

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper stood on a stage in a high school gymnasium in Fayetteville Thursday, welcoming Vice President Kamala Harris to the Tar Heel State for the second time in a week. All the while speculation swirled over whether Harris might soon invite her longtime friend to the national stage.

President Joe Biden on Sunday announced that he’s ending his reelection campaign, a decision that comes after weeks of pressure from donors and lawmakers concerned about his ability to defeat Republican nominee Donald Trump in the November election. Biden also endorsed Harris to be the nominee.

Earlier this month, two people close to the Biden-Harris campaign told the New York Times that Cooper would be a contender to join Harris on the ticket if she were to become the Democratic nominee. Political strategists have also floated Cooper's name, along with other possible candidates.

Multiple reports have named Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona as possible vice presidential options. Cooper and Beshear were scheduled to appear on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show on Monday.

Cooper has declined to comment on predictions about his future, focusing instead on supporting Biden. Earlier this month, Cooper said he hadn’t spoken with Harris about the reports, calling them “the kind of speculation we do not need right now.”

On Sunday, Cooper said Biden cemented his place as one of the best U.S. presidents and endorsed Harris as the party's presidential nominee. He later spoke with her by phone to offer his support.

"Kamala Harris should be the next president," Cooper said Sunday on social media. "I've known [Harris] going back to our days as AGs, and she has what it takes to defeat Donald Trump and lead our country thoughtfully and with integrity. I look forward to campaigning for her as we work to win NC up and down the ticket."

As speculation mounts, here are five reasons why Cooper’s name is in the mix.

He’s a winner in a right-leaning battleground state. North Carolina is considered a top priority for Democrats this year after Biden lost the state by about 1 percentage point — fewer than 75,000 votes — in 2020. Some political science research has found that a vice presidential candidate could be worth up to three percentage points, said David McLennan, a political scientist at Meredith College in Raleigh.

Cooper, who is now 67, has been winning elections in North Carolina since 1986, when he was elected to the state legislature at 29 years old to represent his home of rural Nash County. He’s never lost an election in a political career stretching four decades — even in a purple state, and even in Republican-friendly cycles.

Cooper has won six statewide elections in a row dating back to 2000, when he won the first of his four terms as North Carolina attorney general. He then ran for governor in 2016 and beat incumbent Republican Pat McCrory in a year when other Republicans — Trump and Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, for instance — won the state.

Cooper won reelection in 2020, again despite big wins for Republicans, including Trump and U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis. Cooper received more votes than both.

”Roy Cooper has pulled a bit of a political magic trick — he won twice on the same ballot that elected Donald Trump,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University who has no relation to the governor. “He has to be on the short list.”

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Cooper remains more popular than Biden in North Carolina, said McLennan, who is also director of the Meredith Poll. Cooper’s favorability rating was 52% percent in April while Biden’s was 38%, McLennan said.

Not only could Cooper boost enthusiasm among Democrats in North Carolina, he may also help the ticket appeal to more conservative voters. In North Carolina, Cooper’s approval rating among Republicans is much stronger than Biden’s, McLennan said.

Cooper’s 6-year average approval among Republicans is 36%, while Biden’s 3-year approval among Republicans is 8%, according to McLennan.

North Carolina was the only swing state Biden lost in 2020. But if Democrats lose other swing states this year, then flipping North Carolina would keep his path to reelection alive. Cooper could help, party leaders say.

A recent poll of several closely contested states by The Telegram showed Biden leading in Michigan, but trailing Trump in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Of those four, Trump’s lead was smallest in North Carolina: 44% of voters favored Trump, while 42% favored Biden. The rest said they’d vote for someone else or were still undecided.

“If the president decides not to run, I see Kamala Harris and I would hope Roy Cooper," Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told CNN on Thursday. "I think we would pick up North Carolina as a result."

A safe party pick. Cooper has carried the Democratic Party’s torch in North Carolina while avoiding major personal or political scandals.

Republicans have held majorities in the state legislature throughout Cooper’s tenure, so he has had little power to shape policy himself. But he has used his veto power to try to stop GOP bills that limit abortion, loosen gun laws, target transgender rights, and fund alternatives to public schools. Cooper has vetoed more bills than all other North Carolina governors combined, but that power went away last year, when Republicans gained a veto-proof majority in the state legislature.

Dean says Cooper has done “a great job fending-off [the GOP-led legislature] and the public knows that.”

If Harris is the presidential nominee, Cooper could bring an air of political balance to a ticket, said Doug Heye, Washington-based Republican strategist from North Carolina and former communications director for the Republican National Committee.

Harris is from California, a state Republicans often describe as a hotbed of failed liberal policies. Meanwhile, North Carolina is one of the fastest-growing states and has been named a top destination for businesses several times during Cooper’s tenure.

“He could be a steady hand for the campaign and with no obvious deficiencies,” Heye said of Cooper. “He’s a smart and well spoken governor of a swing state …. and, perhaps most importantly, given how the Democratic Party is moving further and further to the left, wouldn’t scare people.”

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Cooper may also appeal to a presidential candidate who doesn’t want to be overshadowed, said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“Compared to some other governors, such as Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom, [Cooper] has a lower profile, so is a bit more of a blank slate nationally,” Coleman said. “This is not necessarily bad, although he'd need to build up name recognition quickly.”

Because Cooper is less known outside of North Carolina, though, Republicans would have an opportunity to shape his reputation with a national audience.

Indeed, Cooper could be seen as less impressive outside the state if he gets “the kind of scrutiny at the national level that he has failed to get here at the state level,” Matt Mercer, a spokesman for the state Republican Party, said, pointing to policies that were unpopular with Republicans.

“All of those things would be highlighted on a much greater scale,” Mercer said. “And we would certainly look forward to helping with that.

Harris knows Cooper. Harris and Cooper overlapped as top prosecutors of their respective states. Cooper was attorney general of North Carolina from 2001 to 2017. Harris was attorney general from 2011 to 2017.

While campaigning for Biden in Fayetteville on Thursday, Harris said she's known Cooper for nearly 20 years and called him "a great leader" and "my dear friend." And at a Biden campaign event in March, Harris said Cooper stood out among others during their participation in the National Association of Attorneys General.

“Roy was always a leader among leaders,” Harris said. She then told Cooper that, as governor of North Carolina, “you have been courageous, you have been fearless, you always do your work with incredible conviction, you believe in the foundational principles upon which we stand as a country, and you’ve been a dear friend to the president and me.”

Democratic governors Beshear of Kentucky and Shapiro of Pennsylvania also served as attorney general of their respective states. But Harris never overlapped with Shapiro. Beshear and Harris both served as attorneys general in 2016, the year Harris ran for U.S. Senate and won.

Harris has had several occasions to “test drive” her pairing with Cooper at campaign events over the past four years, Coleman said. “If she gets the Democratic nomination in a hurried or unprecedented fashion, she’d have some familiarity with her running mate,” Coleman said.

Indeed, Cooper may enjoy a degree of trust with Harris that other potential running mates don’t have, said Asher Hildebrand, an associate professor at Duke University who worked as chief of staff for Democratic former U.S. Rep. David Price.

“They've got a strong relationship,” Hildebrand said. “He’s somebody that I think she would have a high degree of confidence that she could work with and govern with.”

Availability. Unlike some of the other potential vice presidential candidates, Cooper is on his way out of office. He’s in the last year of his second term and term limits prevent him from running for governor again.

Other potential picks have more time left in office.

Beshear was reelected in 2023 and his term isn’t up until 2027. Shapiro is in his second year as Pennsylvania governor and could seek reelection. Michigan’s Whitmer has two years left in her second term and Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, has four years left in his term.

“I could see it being at least a small selling point for Team Cooper that he'd otherwise not have anywhere else to go next year,” Coleman said. The other Democrats being mentioned could join the ticket and be replaced in their home states by Democrats, Coleman said, but their replacements “would arguably not have the full advantages of incumbency.”

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Some Democrats might also want to forgo a run as vice president to run to instead focus on other future campaigns.

Cooper could run for a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina in 2026, when incumbent Republican Thom Tillis is up for reelection — but Cooper has signaled no plans to do so.

Connecting with rural voters. Cooper, an eastern North Carolina native who grew up on a tobacco farm, may help Democrats connect with rural voters at a time when the party is losing support in those regions.

Political observers say Cooper, with his southern accent, down-to-earth demeanor and resemblance to the late TV father-figure Andy Griffith, carries a familiarity that appeals to rural voters.

Cooper’s political identity is as a “plain spoken and folksy fighter,” Hildebrand said.

Cooper chaired the Democratic Governors Association in 2022, when Democrats won in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The DGA got involved in 28 gubernatorial races and won 22 of them, which the group hailed as the best showing for the president’s party in any midterm since 1986.

“Roy Cooper is the person who has the secret sauce,” said Chris Cooper, the political science professor.

“The secret sauce isn't for Democrats to win rural North Carolina,” he added. “I mean, let's not kid ourselves. That's not happening. But what Roy Cooper has been able to do is to stop the bleeding — to lose less in rural North Carolina and to still win big in urban North Carolina.”

Mercer, the state GOP spokesman, said adding Cooper to the Democratic Party ticket doesn’t guarantee a better performance with Southern or rural voters. Republicans won North Carolina in 2004 when then-U.S. Sen. John Edwards, who grew up in rural Moore County, ran with Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

“The last time a North Carolinian was [a candidate for] vice president, I think North Carolina went Republican by about 12 points or so,” Mercer said. “And I would take great delight in helping ensure a similar outcome this year.”

WRAL State Government Editor Jack Hagel and WRAL anchor/reporter Lena Tillett contributed to this report.