The chair of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, plans to run for the Senate in North Carolina with the backing of President Donald Trump, after Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, declined to run herself, according to two people with knowledge of the decision.

The election to fill the North Carolina seat, which is opening up with the retirement of Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican, at the end of his term, is expected to be one of the most expensive and contested races of 2026.

Democrats have recruited popular former two-term Gov. Roy Cooper, who is planning to enter the race as early as next week.

Trump has taken a direct interest in a number of Senate contests to be held next year, including in North Carolina. With Whatley’s entrance, and with Trump expected to endorse him, Republicans hope to avoid a long and costly primary and can begin to focus on Cooper, one of the people said.

Whatley’s decision to run was first reported by Politico.

Lara Trump and Whatley were chosen by Donald Trump to lead the Republican National Committee last year after he became the presumptive Republican nominee. Lara Trump stepped down in December.

She has been the subject of speculation in connection with other Senate races, including in Florida, where she lives, but has opted against running, this time choosing to continue with the weekly program she hosts on Fox News, which launched in February. An aspiring singer, Trump also released a new single this week.

On a trip on Air Force One this month, Donald Trump nodded to Lara Trump’s Florida residency and seemed to indicate she would be unlikely to run for the North Carolina seat. “Lara Trump, I mean, that would always be my first choice, but she doesn’t live there now,” he said.

Tillis abruptly announced he was retiring from the Senate after saying he could not vote for the president’s expansive spending bill, which extends the Trump’s 2017 tax cuts but also includes items that the senator opposed, like cuts to Medicaid spending that are estimated to leave 10 million people without health care when they take effect. A former speaker in the North Carolina Statehouse, Tillis has been a tough campaigner who won two hard-fought races in 2014 and 2020 for Senate.

Whatley is a longtime Republican operative. He served as a chief of staff to former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, was part of the recount team of former President George W. Bush in Florida and was chair of the North Carolina Republican Party during the 2016 and 2020 presidential races.

In laying the groundwork for a run, Whatley met last week with Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, according to a Republican strategist aware of the meeting.

Whatley was Trump’s choice to lead the Republican National Committee in early 2024, when the former president was well on his way to capturing the party’s presidential nomination for a third time and the party chair at the time, Ronna McDaniel, was facing an unwieldy rebellion from some of the president’s supporters.

Trump had spoken favorably about Whatley for years. His allies had often recounted how Whatley had recruited a large number of poll watchers in North Carolina in the 2020 election and how that had helped Trump narrowly carry the state.

The former president repeatedly said he wanted Whatley to keep Democrats from “cheating” in the 2024 election nationwide.

Whatley is not expected to remain chair of the Republican National Committee. It is not yet clear whom Trump might name to replace him.

Another Senate race Trump has been personally involved in this week is for the open seat in Michigan. Rep. Bill Huizenga, a Republican who had considered running in recent months, announced Wednesday that he had decided against a campaign “in consultation with President Trump.”

The Republican leadership in the Senate has lined up behind Mike Rogers, a former member of Congress who narrowly lost a Senate race in 2024.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman/Haiyun Jiang
c. 2025 The New York Times Company