Digital Ground Game July Midterm Report

Exciting elections in North Carolina and strange happenings in Nebraska's Senate race

This July, Digital Ground Game is using our monthly Midterms Report to shine a light on elections in North Carolina and explore some unique circumstances surrounding the U.S. Senate race in Nebraska. Due to party affiliation, we won’t be doing a full scale candidate highlight on the Nebraska race but we still wanted to give some coverage to it considering how abnormal it’s been so far and it’s possible role in Democrats taking the Senate this fall. On June 29th the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration's efforts to restrict mail-in voting in Watson v. RNC. Regardless of the decision, we advise that if you plan to use a mail-in ballot this fall, be sure to send it at least two weeks ahead of election day if possible to account for any possible delays in the mail.

State Highlight: North Carolina

The state of North Carolina is rather strange electorally speaking; its near perfect record of backing Republican presidential nominees since the 1980s is contrasted by its penchant for electing Democratic governors. Although the state’s narrow partisan split results in a lot of close call elections on the state-wide scale, district based elections are a different story entirely. Following the 2012 elections where Republicans took a veto-proof majority in both houses of their state legislature, Republicans pushed a number of gerrymanders and laws to make it harder for Democrats to take power. The result of these efforts is the Republican Party holding power in North Carolina’s state congress for over a decade ^[1]. All that said, the overwhelming popularity of the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate combined with the evidently approaching blue wave this cycle make elections in North Carolina significantly more interesting than they otherwise might be.

Senate

Nearly a year ago Senator Thom Tillis announced he wouldn’t be running for re-election citing the desire to spend time with his family and a disappointment in the body’s loss of respect for bi-partisanship and compromise ^[2]. Despite his stated reasoning, the announcement shortly following public attacks from Trump over the 2025 budget reconciliation have led many to speculate that abuse from the party contributed to the choice ^[3]. Tillis seems not to have publicly endorsed any candidate during the primary process, but some reporting indicates he offered now Republican nominee, Michael Whatley advice behind the scenes ^[4]. The combination of Democratic candidate Roy Cooper’s existing popularity and Republican candidate Michael Whatley’s astonishingly low name recognition ^[5] has created a polling environment that looks very promising for Democrats ^[6]. 

Michael Whatley - R

Recent former chair of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley is the Republican nominee. His background admittedly makes writing a compelling bio for him somewhat difficult, he’s effectively just a Republican apparatchik who hung around long enough to filter up to the top of the party infrastructure ^[7]. He worked in the department of energy for the bush administration before moving into lobbying for oil and gas companies. In 2019 Whatley was selected to chair the North Carolina Republican Party where he pushed claims of election fraud and censured then Senator Richard Burr for his vote to convict Trump during the second impeachment trial. He served as RNC chair for just over a year starting in 2024 but he seemingly didn't accomplish anything noteworthy during his time in the role ^[8]. The Whatley for Senate website is one of the least impressive campaign sites I’ve reviewed. Not only does his website not have tabs to navigate, Whatley doesn't list policy proposals at all. The closest thing we get to a list of Whatley’s issues is a minute long video that spouts a bunch of political platitudes and indicates support for a “common sense America-first agenda”. The only other thing to be found on the website is a brief bio all the way at the bottom that says the same thing as the bio of him you could find anywhere else ^[9]. I generally try to avoid being quite this explicitly negative when covering candidates but Michael Whatley is an impressively awful pick in an already difficult cycle for Republicans.

Roy Cooper - D

Democratic nominee Roy Cooper is something of a political jack of all trades in North Carolina, it’s no shock he’s handily leading polls considering Cooper left the NC governor's mansion in 2025 with a +14 job approval rating ^[10]. Following the 18 years he spent working at his family’s law firm, the list of public offices Cooper has held is rather extensive. In 1986 Roy was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives later being appointed to the State Senate where he was elected majority leader in 1997. In the 2000 election Roy Cooper became the North Carolina Attorney General, a seat he would retain for four terms. Finally in 2017 he would win his gubernatorial race by only 50,000 votes as the only Democratic governor to win a state that voted for Trump ^[11]. Roy Cooper’s campaign website is well organized and fairly easy to navigate, his “Meet Roy” section emphasizes his accomplishments in elected office over his personal life which is something I’d like to see more of because that information is more valuable to voters. Cooper is using the slogan “make stuff cost less” as an overarching theme for his policy platform, the casual vibe of it is appealing, it gets the message across, and they even sell stickers of it. The platform is broken into groceries, health care, energy, child care, and housing; while some of his policies are a little populist for my taste, his suggestions are easy to understand and fairly moderate ^[12]. 

Strategy

It’s somewhat difficult to offer advice to a campaign that’s already performing as well as Cooper’s is so I’ll be brief. One of the populist ideals that really seems to have been internalized by the MAGA right is a dislike of bureaucrats and career politicians; it might be helpful to harness that against Whatley. Michael Whatley has never really worked a “real” job outside of politics and was a literal oil lobbyist for over a decade. Running attack ads emphasizing his lack of connection to voter’s everyday lives and communicating that he is an archetypal rent-seeker could be an effective method of demotivating his voters. 

North Carolina's first congressional district

Following redistricting at the end of 2025, NC-1 has likely moved from a marginal Democratic lean to a sound Republican one. The changes mean Black voters make up roughly 30% of the district’s population rather than the 40% they were in the previous map ^[13]. While it won’t be impossible for incumbent Don Davis to retain his seat, this is likely to be a grueling fight as victories were tight even before the recent changes.

Don Davis - D

Air Force veteran and incumbent to the role, Don Davis is the unopposed Democratic Party nominee running to retain the district one seat. Davis is more than qualified for the job, not only would this be his third term representing the district, he previously served in the state senate and even as the mayor of his home town of Snow Hill ^[14]. The values Davis holds from his time in the Air Force and as a former teacher are plainly visible in his legislative work and on his campaign website. His site is well integrated and very detailed, a feature that stood out to me is the addition of a digital campaign pamphlet that you can flip through that detailed much of his efforts in congress so far. The issues tab is also integrated with his press release feed so under his policy summary you can directly see a list of recent actions he’s taken related to each policy ^[15]. If I had to give a critique of the page, I worry it might be a little overwhelming to the average voter. I found the features of the website engaging and helpful but I could easily imagine a less savvy person getting lost in menus.

Laurie Buckhout - R

Retired Army officer and electronic weapons consultant, Laurie Buckhout is taking another shot at NC-1 after her narrow 2024 loss ^[16]. Buckhout has used her degrees in military arts and national military strategy throughout her career culminating most recently in a brief stint as the acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy ^[17]. Her campaign website is pretty standard and simple to navigate but it’s a tad bare content wise. It’s clear Buckhout is hoping to win off of identifying with veterans and attacking the liberals alone, essentially every block of text on the website either mentions her military service or launches an attack at democrats. Her policy page is formatted strangely leaving a lot of open space on the screen that emphasizes the lack of substance she offers. Readers would be hard pressed to offer a single tangible policy proposal based on her “issues” tab ^[18]. Notably Buckhout has received support from the Leading the Future super PAC backed by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI which isn't overly surprising given her aggressive deregulatory stance on ai and tech generally.

Strategy

Laurie Buckhout has a work history that should be ripe for attack ads a more populist voter base would find appealing. She claims to have a deep concern about America’s enemies launching cyber attacks on us, highlighting that she was a policy advisor in the defense department when the Trump administration shut down the FBI’s foreign influence task force and the State Department’s Center for Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference ^[19]. Highlighting her connections to AI companies could also be a turn off for voters considering how unpopular the tech is with the general public ^[20].

North Carolina's 11th congressional district

Encompassing the western-most wing of the state, a significant portion of NC-11 is rural, pulling the district rightward. The presence of Asheville pulls back the population closer to even, the district only supported Trump by just under 10% in 2024 ^[21]. Although the large polling aggregators still label the race as “leans R”, the emergence of an interesting Democratic nominee led us to decide the race would be worth covering.

Chuck Edwards - R

Former state senator and incumbent representative, Chuck Edwards soundly won the Republican primary earlier this year. While Edwards did previously serve as a state senator, his credentials prior to public service are somewhat underwhelming. He is a McDonald’s franchisee and owns a management group that operates restaurants on the west side of North Carolina; following the campaign stunt where Donald Trump served a McDonald’s drive-through, Chuck presented Trump with a French Fry Certification Pin. Notably Chuck Edwards was reportedly the subject of a U.S. House Ethics Committee investigation over sexual harassment allegations related to his staffers, Chuck also has one of the highest staff turnover rates in the congress adding to the claim ^[22]. The Edwards campaign website looks fine visually but I noticed that the image slide show at the top of the page caused an annoying jittering effect on the text that made his bio section hard to read. His bio had an alternate “fast facts” section that presented the information in a bullet point list format, this is something I’d like to see our candidates take up doing. Chuck’s policy section is somewhat bland but generally inoffensive, it has a strong focus on his efforts addressing the impacts of Hurricane Helene on his district and then hits some of the standard Republican party policies like border controls and tax cuts ^[23].

Jamie Ager - D

Jamie Ager is the Democratic Party nominee in this race, in addition to running his farm and sustainable meat company he plans to enter public service mirroring the career of his grandfather James Clarke. Ager’s inspiration to run was witnessing the effects of Hurricane Helene, one of his primary goals in congress is to improve disaster response times. Jamie’s campaign site is simple and easy to navigate and while it's quite wordy, the writing comes off as personal and rather endearing. The policy platform Ager puts forward is comprehensive but grounded, it does an effective job addressing the concerns pushed by Republicans without necessarily validating them ^[24]. As a farmer himself, Ager can attest first hand to the issues plaguing rural America which will likely be a real boon to his campaign.

Strategy

The Ager campaign so far is doing a good job staying clean and grounded and should continue to do so, the extent of attack ads directly from Ager should stick to highlighting Edwards as a big corporations guy who’s disconnected from the everyday American. Groups not directly connected to Ager should try to raise the salience of the Chuck Edwards ethics investigation and the allegations of him hatting a constituent with a clipboard ^[25]. A more tangible move the Ager team could make would be pledging to continue and improve the mobile constituent services office program that Edwards seems to have had success in, the program involves traveling out to more rural communities to offer services without constituents needing to drive hours into the city.

Nebraska Senate race - candidate shell game

The race for the U.S. Senate seat in Nebraska this year seems to be flying under the radar for a lot of people despite how strange it’s been thus far. Nebraska’s statewide races are ruby red, incumbent Senator Ricketts has a history of nearly doubling the votes of his Democratic Party opponents; because of this record, Democrats in the state initially didn't even field a candidate. Following the announcement of independent Dan Osborn, Nebraska’s Democratic party infrastructure began supporting him as a valid competitor to Ricketts. Once Republicans saw they might be forced to face Osborn, they put forward anti-abortion pastor Willian Forbes to run as a democrat with the goal of confusing the voters and diluting Democratic constituents. In order to counter this candidate plant, pharmacy financial councilor Cindy Burbank joined and won the Democratic primary with close to 90% of the vote before dropping out to make room for Osborn this fall ^[26]. While Osborn doesn't plan to caucus with Democrats, as long as he doesn't caucus with Republicans either then his election would reduce the number of Senate races we need to win for the majority. Lastly I’ll caution readers seeking out polling on this race, many of the polls are being worded specifically to avoid mentioning Osborn in order to produce favorable numbers for Ricketts ^[27].

Closer

Despite how clear the Watson v. RNC case should have been, the decision resulted in a 5/4 split just barely protecting mail-in voting procedures. These sorts of decisions have a tendency to shift the Overton window and the administration is by no means finished attacking our voting systems so we advise you submit mail-in ballots at least two weeks ahead of election day to account for any problems with the USPS. If you want more immediate, real time updates on Digital Ground Game, be sure to keep an eye on our website or join our Discord, where you can talk to our staff directly about news and upcoming projects.