Traveling to swing states, NC Gov. Roy Cooper plans to be ‘active’ surrogate for Harris

As Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign prepares for the final three-month stretch before Election Day, expect North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to be an “active” surrogate for her, both throughout the state and the country.

In the 10 days since Harris took over as the presumptive Democratic nominee and launched her search for a running mate, several high-profile Democrats, including those who are reportedly under consideration for her vice-presidential pick, have fanned out to different swing states and appeared on national TV almost daily, promoting the party’s new standard-bearer.

Cooper has ramped up his efforts as a campaign surrogate as well, joining MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” the day after Harris began her campaign to tout her, holding a campaign event in Raleigh on Thursday, and rallying campaign supporters during a virtual “White Dudes for Harris” fundraising call Monday night.

In the coming weeks, Cooper is expected to expand those efforts to include traveling to different swing states across the country to campaign for Harris and continuing to make the case for her on national TV and in other media, on top of traversing the state to “make sure that we turn North Carolina blue,” Morgan Jackson, a longtime political adviser to Cooper and other Democrats, told The News & Observer.

Cooper was previously mentioned as being in the mix of vice presidential contenders that the Harris campaign was considering, but he formally took himself out of the running on Monday, saying it “just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket.”

Behind the scenes, Cooper was never asked to provide documents for Harris to use to vet him, Jackson previously told The N&O.

As Cooper fielded questions about potentially joining the ticket last week, he said on the full first day of the campaign that his focus was on making sure that Harris wins in November, and pledging to “work for her, all over this country, and do what I can to make sure we stop Donald Trump.”

Where will Cooper go?

Jackson said that the swing states Cooper visits will depend on the requests that come in from the Harris campaign, but suggested that Cooper could travel to a variety of states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and even potentially Arizona and Nevada in the southwest.

Cooper has already begun receiving those requests, and was asked to go to Michigan and Wisconsin in the last few weeks, but was not able to go due to scheduling conflicts, Jackson said.

The Harris campaign has been deploying surrogates throughout the country in recent days. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer visited New Hampshire last week, and joined Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro for a rally in a small suburb north of Philadelphia on Monday. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, meanwhile, campaigned for Harris in an Atlanta suburb on Sunday.

“It’s really about the requests that come from the campaign, what they need, and how that lines up with what the governor’s availability is, but he is going to very much be a very active presence” both nationally, and across the state, Jackson said. “He takes the responsibility very (seriously) to try to bring the campaign across the line, to win North Carolina.”

Swing-state campaigner

Democrats haven’t won North Carolina in presidential or U.S. Senate races since 2008, but the margins have narrowed in the two most recent presidential elections. Former President Donald Trump won the state in 2016 by 3.8 percentage points, but his winning margin was just 1.3 percentage points in 2020.

Harris and her yet-to-be-named running mate plan to visit Raleigh next week. And Jackson said Harris and her campaign, including surrogates from other states, will continue making frequent visits to North Carolina through Nov. 5.

Harris has already visited the state seven times this year, including twice (once to Greensboro, and the other time to Fayetteville) since the June 27 debate between President Joe Biden and Trump that led to Biden dropping out of the race just over a week ago.

Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College, said that Cooper’s Southern roots, and his ability to speak to voters and win elections in a competitive battleground state could make him a strong surrogate for Harris in places like North Carolina and Georgia.

Bitzer said it’s possible Cooper may be a less effective messenger in the Rust Belt, but added that wherever Cooper is asked to campaign for Harris, he’ll be able to deliver a message in support of Harris — and against Trump — that is concise, sharp, and easy to digest for the average voter.

As an example, Bitzer pointed to the brief remarks Cooper gave during Monday’s “White Dudes for Harris” fundraising call. Cooper only spoke for a few minutes, but attacked Trump, his running mate J.D. Vance, and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running for governor, saying that they had made clear that “disrespect of women permeates Donald Trump land, and MAGA Republicans.”

The Trump campaign, responding to the line of attack on Tuesday, said that women voters are concerned about illegal immigration and the economy, and said that the February killing of nursing student Laken Riley in Georgia by a Venezuelan migrant who entered the U.S. illegally “is every woman’s worst nightmare.”

The campaign said that Biden and Harris’s handling of the southern border has “turned our nightmare into reality.”

Bitzer said another strength for Cooper as a swing-state campaigner is his record of winning some voters who also voted for Trump in the two past elections that Cooper and Trump have both been on the ballot, particularly in “urban suburbs” that lie outside big cities like Raleigh and Charlotte.

Matt Mercer, a spokesman for the N.C. Republican Party, said that Cooper “has demonstrated repeatedly he has failed to move the needle for Democrats.”

“His record as a surrogate has resulted in delivering legislative supermajorities for Republicans and 22 vetoes overridden in the General Assembly,” Mercer said in a statement. “Democrats should beware of his promises to win for other candidates, he did famously tell Joe Biden that he would get him and failed Senate candidate Cal Cunningham ‘over the finish line’ in 2020.”

“North Carolinians know that the Biden-Harris administration has made it harder to raise a family and will vote for President Trump and Senator JD Vance to make America great again in November,” he said.

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