Democrat Roy Cooper leads Republican Michael Whatley by 14 percentage points in a new North Carolina U.S. Senate poll, with early voting approaching, according to a SurveyUSA survey conducted Oct. 7-11 for WSOC-TV and WRAL-TV. The poll found 54% of likely voters backing Cooper, a former North Carolina governor, compared with 40% for Whatley, the former Republican National Committee chair. Another 1% chose a different candidate and 5% were undecided. The poll’s five-point credibility interval reflects uncertainty in the results, meaning the precise size of the lead may differ from the estimate. Cooper leads Whatley by 31 points among independent voters, 59% to 28%, and by 37 points in urban areas and 20 points in the suburbs. His lead is 29 points in the greater Raleigh area, 16 in the Greensboro area, eight in western North Carolina and six in greater Charlotte, the survey found. Whatley leads among Republicans by 80 points, while Cooper leads among Democrats by 91 points. Whatley also leads among gun owners by eight points, rural voters by five and white voters by three. Cooper’s advantages include 62 points among Black voters, 34 among Latino voters and 34 among the youngest voters. Western Carolina University professor Chris Cooper said the direction of the polling was unsurprising, but questioned whether the 14-point margin would hold. He said a double-digit lead would raise questions and that he would be surprised if the final result showed such a large gap. The poll’s release comes as the Senate Leadership Fund is discontinuing advertising for Whatley ahead of in-person early voting. Roy Cooper said the move may reflect internal polling, though the campaign’s internal surveys were not made public. He suggested Republicans could direct resources to other competitive Senate races instead. The survey also found that 85% of respondents were confident votes would be counted accurately. President Donald Trump’s North Carolina approval rating stood at 37%, while Gov. Josh Stein’s was 46%.