Cooper ran well ahead of ECU’s North Carolina poll

What the count shows

Roy Cooper (D, NC Senate); Michael Whatley (R, NC Senate). NBC News projects Roy Cooper as the winner. In the snapshot checked November 5 at 8:48 p.m. Eastern, Cooper had 2,467,963 votes to 1,643,088 for Michael Whatley. The reported lead was 824,875 votes, or 19.63 percentage points across all candidates.

The selected ECU Center for Survey Research poll had a 9-point Cooper lead. The reported margin is 10.63 points larger than that published poll margin. The projected winner matches the poll’s leading candidate; the size of the lead is a separate test.

What makes this comparison useful

The denominator matters, but it does not explain the size of this gap. Excluding the smaller candidates raises Cooper’s reported lead only slightly. The count remains much wider than ECU’s published nine-point lead.

Keep the original poll intact

ECU interviewed 1,041 registered voters who had already voted or were likely to vote, October 26–29. It combined text-to-web responses, landline automated interviews and an online panel. The release reports a ±3.5-point credibility interval.

The selected survey’s original ballot and methods are reproduced below. It is one published poll, not a polling average or a claim that no later poll existed. Undecided responses, minor candidates, the voter screen and the field dates remain part of the record.

The survey’s stated uncertainty applies to its estimates under its method. It is not an automatic pass-or-fail cutoff for a difference between two candidates, and it cannot turn a provisional count into a final polling-error score.

The denominator check

Using all 4,203,181 reported candidate votes produces the 19.63-point lead. Restricting the denominator to Roy Cooper and Michael Whatley produces 20.06 points. Both calculations are shown so readers can see the effect rather than confuse the two measures.

For a fully two-candidate poll comparison, the published poll shares must also be renormalized. It would be misleading to change only the result denominator and describe that as a like-for-like final error.

Where the evidence stops

NBC estimated 99% of the vote in. This is a dated reported-count snapshot, not a certified final result. The national senate payload was updated Fri, 06 Nov 2026 01:48:30 GMT. That is the source update clock, not the original race-call time or a timestamp for an individual ballot batch.

A final polling audit should repeat the same calculations after the outcome is stable, preserving the original pre-election poll. This article does not change 21CEE’s locked forecast or claim that a polling gap proves which voters switched parties or stayed home.

Sources and calculations

Reporting: the linked original publishers. Calculations and graphics: 21CEE. Poll shares are kept as published; result margins use the exact candidate counts in the accessible table. The source clocks above describe the retained snapshot. No certification or original call time is inferred.

• ECU Center for Survey Research: Original pre-election poll tables
• NBC News: NBC News senate results snapshot, checked November 5 evening