SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Georgia and North Carolina are not quite red, not quite blue, but increasingly a rare purple when it comes to politics. Voters there have chosen both Democrats and Republicans in statewide elections in recent years. In 2026, they'll each have a closely watched and very likely expensive U.S. Senate race. NPR's Stephen Fowler has spent the summer reporting in those states. He joins us now from Atlanta. Stephen, thanks for being with us.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
SIMON: Georgia and North Carolina are both swing states, and they both voted for President Trump in 2024 and mostly have Republican elected officials at the state and federal level. How do Democrats feel about the midterms?
FOWLER: Let's start in North Carolina. Voters previously elected two Republican senators. They backed President Trump all three times while also electing a Democratic governor each of those three elections. This time, Senator Thom Tillis faced a potential primary challenge and tough general election, then he announced he was retiring. So at the end of July, when I visited the North Carolina Democratic Party's annual fundraising dinner in Raleigh, there was a lot of buzz about the chance to flip this seat.
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ROY COOPER: Now, for almost seven months I've been out of office, I've been reading and watching media reports, and, guys, we know it ain't pretty.
FOWLER: Just days before announcing his U.S. Senate bid, former Governor Roy Cooper thrilled the crowd with a message that railed against Republican policies and reminded them of his accomplishments as chief executive of the state.
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COOPER: Look at what's happening in Washington. They are running up our debt. They are disrespecting our veterans. They're cutting help for the hungry, and they're ripping away health care for millions of people, all to give tax breaks to the millionaires and the billionaires, and it's not right.
FOWLER: On the Republican side, though, there's an embrace of the president's policies. Trump's hand-picked leader of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, said at the RNC summer meeting last month that Trump wants him to serve in Congress.
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MICHAEL WHATLEY: I have made this decision to answer this call because President Trump deserves an ally, and North Carolina deserves a strong conservative voice in the Senate.
FOWLER: It's not just the Senate race that's driving Democrats' attention, though. State Party Chair Anderson Clayton has focused on organizing outside of urban areas and on races voters might not pay close attention to.
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ANDERSON CLAYTON: But we're also educating people about our court races. So we're on a 54-county rural tour right now, which is just talking to people about down-ballot races. There were over 200,000 people that turned out in Governor Stein's election last year that did not vote for our Supreme Court race.
SIMON: All right, that's North Carolina. Let me ask you, Stephen, now about the president's influence in Georgia because he has both lost and won that state in presidential elections. There's a key Senate race there going on right now. How does the president figure into this picture?
FOWLER: I've lived in Georgia my whole life and have covered its political evolution over the last decade from a reliably Republican stronghold to narrowly voting for President Biden in 2020 and electing two Democratic U.S. senators. One of them, Senator Jon Ossoff, is on the ballot again next year in what's expected to be the other very expensive close race. Several Republicans are vying for Trump's support, but the frontrunner there who also most closely embodies Trump's influence on the party is Congressman Mike Collins. I went to Mike Collins' rainy campaign kickoff a few weeks ago in his hometown of Jackson, about an hour southeast of Atlanta.
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MIKE COLLINS: I won't be outworked in this race. I mean, I'll travel to every single county, all 159, just to prosecute the case against Jon Ossoff and let the people who know Georgia just know that they can do a whole lot better.
FOWLER: Collins is a trucking company executive who joined Congress after the 2022 midterms and has quickly emerged as a Republican lawmaker who's pugilistic online and can actually work on making laws. But Ossoff is focusing on one law, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill of Trump's priorities, that the Democrat says is already leading to less access to health care, like a north Georgia hospital that recently closed its labor and delivery services.
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JON OSSOFF: This is not abstract. This is not theoretical. This is not just politics. We're already seeing the direct impact of these choices.
FOWLER: Collins is unflinchingly conservative but is also touting the effort he's made to pass bills that have bipartisan support in a state where swing voters do make a difference. That includes passing a bill under President Biden aimed at fighting the spread of synthetic opioids, and an immigration law that was the first measure signed when Trump returned to office in January.
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COLLINS: Now, listen to me. These bills don't just pass because I dropped them in the hopper, did a press conference and called it a day. No, I went door to door in the House and in the Senate. I even leaned on and worked with Democrats just to make sure that this good policy was not going to fail.
SIMON: Stephen, of course, we're still more than a year out from the midterm elections. What are you going to be looking for in the coming months?
FOWLER: Both of these states are susceptible to the president's ever-changing economic agenda, and tariffs could become a more salient issue for voters. In North Carolina, that Senate matchup being basically set means we're going to see how both parties get a head start on workshopping their general election messaging pretty quickly. Georgia also has a governor's race where 2020 looms large. There's a crowded field on both sides. Just this week, former Republican lieutenant governor-turned-Democrat Geoff Duncan announced his campaign, as did the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who is on Trump's bad side for defending those election results.
SIMON: NPR's Stephen Fowler in Atlanta. Thanks so much.
FOWLER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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