Roy Cooper

Early life and education

Roy Asberry Cooper III was born in Nashville, North Carolina, on June 13, 1957, to Beverly Thorne (née Batchelor) (1929–2013), a teacher, and Roy Asberry Cooper II (1927–2015), a lawyer and Democratic Party operative who was a close advisor to Jim Hunt; he later co-chaired Hunt's successful 1976 gubernatorial campaign. He is a descendent of Marcom Cooper, who served as a grand juror and as a petit juror during the American Revolutionary War. Cooper is the brother of district court judge Pell Cooper. He attended public schools and worked on his parents' tobacco farm during summers. He attended Northern Nash High School, where he was an athlete, a participant in Boys State, and a member of student government. During his senior year, he was selected to represent Nash County in the Youth Legislative Assembly. He graduated in 1975.

Cooper received the Morehead Scholarship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for his undergraduate studies. As an undergraduate at UNC, he was a member of the Chi Psi fraternity and was elected president of the university's Young Democrats. He graduated with a B.A. in Political Science in 1979. He earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1982.

Early career

While Cooper was still in law school, then-Governor Jim Hunt appointed him to the State Goals and Policy Board, an advisory group that sought to achieve long- and short-range goals and policies for the state. He was the youngest person ever to serve on the board. Hunt also appointed Cooper to the Interim Balance Growth Board and the North Carolina 2000 Commission. He was also a member of the Rocky Mount Chamber of Commerce and UNC-Chapel Hill's Board of Visitors.

In 1982, Cooper joined the law firm Fields, Cooper & Henderson in Nashville, North Carolina, the same firm his father had been a founding member of. Three years later, he was named a partner in the firm. In 1984, Cooper served as the Rocky Mount and Nash County chairman of Lauch Faircloth's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign.

State legislature

On November 19, 1985, Cooper filed to run for the North Carolina House of Representatives in the 72nd district. He challenged 12-term incumbent Allen Barbee in the Democratic primary and ran on a campaign of supporting agriculture and resolving a school merger dispute in Nash County. Cooper won the primary with 76% of the vote to Barbee's 24%, including more than a six times gap in votes for Nash county (5,966 vs 884), and he was unopposed in the general election.

Cooper continued to practice law while serving in the legislature. The nonpartisan North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research ranked him the most effective freshman representative. In January 1989, he joined Republicans and 20 other dissident Democrats to unseat Speaker Liston B. Ramsey in favor of Josephus Mavretic, who appointed Cooper chair of the House Judiciary Committee, of which he had been a member during his first term. Cooper also voted with all House Republicans and 15 Democrats in favor of an unsuccessful attempt to amend the constitution to grant the governor veto power over legislation.

In February 1991, after State Senator Jim Ezzell was killed in a car crash, Cooper was appointed to the Senate to serve the remainder of Ezzell's term representing the 10th district, which encompassed parts of Edgecombe, Halifax, Nash, and Wilson Counties. In 1995, Cooper negotiated a compromise bill to schedule a referendum to amend the constitution and grant the governor veto power. In July 1997, he was elected Majority leader of the Senate upon Richard Conder's abrupt resignation. During his last term in the Senate, he was elected to the North Carolina Bar Association's Board of Governors, a position he held until June 2002.

Cooper's record in the legislature included implementing penalties for minors who bring guns to school, making public records more accessible, toughening the state's open meetings law, and giving the governor more veto power.

North Carolina Attorney General (2001-2017)

Elections

In January 2000, Cooper filed with the state Board of Elections to launch a campaign for North Carolina attorney general. In the November general election, he defeated Republican lawyer Dan Boyce and Reform Party candidate Margaret Palms. He took office on January 6, 2001, and was reelected in 2004, defeating Republican Joseph Thomas Knott. He was easily reelected in 2008, defeating Republican Bob Crumley and garnering more votes than any other statewide candidate that year. Cooper ran unopposed for a fourth term in 2012, and received 2,828,941 votes.

Both state and national Democrats attempted to recruit Cooper to run for governor in 2008, the U.S. Senate in 2010, and again for governor in 2012, but he declined each time. A 2009 Public Policy Polling survey matching him against incumbent U.S. Senator Richard Burr showed Cooper leading Burr by four points.

Tenure

In 2001, Cooper initiated legislation that established new mentoring and tutoring programs for middle and high school students out on short-term suspension. Governor Mike Easley signed the bill in June of that year.

In 2002, a controversy arose after the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles was accused of covering up the speeding citation issued for Democratic U.S. House candidate James Ferguson during the 2000 campaign, and the North Carolina Republican Party called on Cooper to launch an investigation. Faced with potential fallout for investigating members of his own party, Cooper called on federal prosecutors to convene an investigative grand jury, arguing that they had powers to compel testimony not available to the state.

In January 2007, when Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong asked to be recused from dealing with the Duke lacrosse case, Cooper's office assumed responsibility for the case. On April 11, 2007, after revelations of Nifong's withholding of evidence, fabrications, and other ethics violations, Cooper dismissed the case against the Duke lacrosse team players, taking the extraordinary step of declaring them "innocent" and victims of a "tragic rush to accuse". The decision won him bipartisan praise.

Days after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, Cooper created the Campus Safety Task Force to analyze school shootings and make policy recommendations to help the government prevent and respond to them. The task force delivered its report in January 2008. After the release of its findings, Cooper assisted members of the North Carolina General Assembly in passing a law that required court clerks to record involuntary commitments in a national gun permit database.

After a 2010 decision by a three-judge panel to exonerate Gregory Taylor, who had served nearly 17 years for the first-degree murder of Jaquetta Thomas, Cooper ordered an audit after it was learned that officials at the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation forensic lab had withheld information. This suppression of evidence had contributed to Taylor's conviction for murder. The audit was released in 2010; it found that it had been common practice for two decades for a select group of agents at the State Bureau of Investigation to withhold information. In addition, they did not keep up with scientific standards and the latest tests. The two investigators, Chris Swecker and Micheal Fox, cited almost 230 cases tainted by these actions. Three people convicted in such cases had been executed; 80 convicts were still in prison. A massive state effort was undertaken to follow up on their cases.

Governor of North Carolina (2017-2025)

Elections

Cooper ran for governor of North Carolina in the 2016 election against incumbent Republican Pat McCrory. In March 2016, the North Carolina General Assembly passed the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act—commonly known as "House Bill 2"—which McCrory signed into law. Numerous corporations began boycotting the state in protest of the law, cancelling job investment and expansion plans. Cooper denounced the law as unconstitutional and refused to defend it in court in his capacity as attorney general.

As a result of the economic damage the law caused, McCrory's approval rating fell dramatically in the months before the election. When initial election results showed Cooper leading, McCrory claimed without evidence that the election had been manipulated by voter fraud. Recounts resulted in slightly higher margins of victory for Cooper, and after an extended legal battle, McCrory conceded the election on December 5. Out of 4.7 million total ballots, Cooper won by 10,227 votes.

On December 5, 2019, Cooper announced his candidacy for reelection. He won the November 3 election, defeating Republican nominee Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest 51.52% to 47.01%.

Transition

Dismayed by Cooper's win, in late 2016 the General Assembly passed special legislation before he was inaugurated to reduce the power of the governor's office. In what The New York Times described as a "surprise special session", Republican legislators moved to strip Cooper's powers before he assumed the governorship. Throughout December, Cooper oversaw an attempt to repeal the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act. The repeal attempt failed after a deal between state Republican and Democratic lawmakers and Charlotte officials fell apart.

Tenure

Cooper was sworn in as governor on January 1, 2017, in a small ceremony. His planned public inauguration was canceled due to a snowstorm.

After taking office, as of January 6, 2017, Cooper requested federal approval for Medicaid coverage expansion in North Carolina. Effective January 15, a federal judge halted Cooper's request, an order that expired on January 29. In his first months in office, Cooper focused on repealing the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act. After long negotiations with Republican state legislators, Cooper agreed in late March to sign a law prohibiting North Carolina cities from passing local ordinances pertaining to public accommodations or employment practices for three years in exchange for the reversal of the facilities act. On May 9, 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Cooper to a commission tasked with reducing opioid addiction.

After the U.S. Supreme Court declared North Carolina's legislative maps unconstitutional, Cooper called for a special redistricting session on June 7, 2017, but the House and Senate canceled the session, calling it unconstitutional. On June 29, Cooper signed the STOP Act, an overhaul of the prescribing and dispensing regulations of opioids.

On July 1, Cooper signed into law a bill that allows alcohol sales after 10 AM on Sundays, nicknamed the "Brunch Bill". On July 11, he signed "Britny's Law", which makes homicide first-degree murder if the killing was committed with malice and the defendant has been convicted of domestic violence or stalking the victim. He also signed bills to allow domestic violence protective orders granted by a judge to fully go into effect even when they are under appeal and to expand the state's "revenge porn" law from cases involving former lovers to those involving strangers. On July 12, Cooper signed a bill that would add lessons on what to do when pulled over by law enforcement to the state's driver's education curriculum. The bill passed both chambers unanimously.

On July 26, 2017, Cooper signed a bill to mount cameras on school buses in order to discourage drivers from illegally passing stopped buses. On August 31, 2017, he declared a state of emergency due to plummeting gas supply, which was rescinded on September 18.

Fellow Appalachian governors elected Cooper co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission for 2019, making him the first North Carolina governor to co-chair the ARC since Jim Hunt in 1978. In the 2018 elections, the Republican Party lost seats in the General Assembly, ending its supermajorities in both houses and rendering it unable to override gubernatorial vetoes. On March 6, 2019, Cooper proposed a $25.2 billion budget for the year. It included salary increases for public school teachers and state workers, expansion of Medicaid, and a $3.9 billion bond (subject to a referendum) to help fund school construction and local infrastructure projects. Cooper said that he was confident he could get the legislature, without enough Republican members to override a veto, to implement some of his ideas.

2026 U.S. Senate campaign

On July 28, 2025, Cooper announced that he would run for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina in 2026, seeking to succeed Republican incumbent Thom Tillis, who had announced his retirement earlier that month.

In 2025, U.S. Representative Wiley Nickel announced his candidacy for the United States Senate in the 2026 election. He withdrew from the race in July 2025 following Cooper's entry into the race and endorsed him for the Democratic nomination.

Personal life

Roy Cooper is married to Kristin Cooper (née Bernhardt), who worked as a guardian ad litem for foster children in Wake County. They have three daughters, who all graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Cooper has taught Sunday school classes, serving as a deacon and elder at White Memorial Presbyterian Church, and is an avid fan of the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes. He became a member of the Sons of the American Revolution in 2018.

Cooper accepted a teaching position at Harvard University after his term as governor ended.

Pronunciation of surname

In 2023, Cooper said that his last name should actually be pronounced , with the letters "oo" resembling the "oo" sound in "foot", as opposed to the more frequently used , (where the letters "oo" make the same sound as in "soon") which most people have called him for many years. He explained that the former is a local pronunciation of "Cooper" in Eastern North Carolina, where he grew up in Nash County, and his name was always said this way until he went to college. He said that he is fine with people using the more common pronunciation.

Publications

Articles

"I'm the Governor of North Carolina. This Fringe Claim Before the Supreme Court Would Upend Democracy". The New York Times. December 5, 2022.

Electoral history

North Carolina Attorney General

Roy Cooper ran unopposed in the 2004 Democratic primary.

Roy Cooper ran unopposed in the 2008 Democratic primary.

Roy Cooper was the only candidate to file before the state's February 29 deadline, he ran unopposed in both the Democratic Primary and General Election.