Republican US Senate candidate Michael Whatley is sounding an alarm about the financial state of his campaign, and telling supporters that he’s “dead in the water” unless they quickly send more money.
The unusually urgent fundraising appeal went out as Whatley was getting some very high-profile help from President Donald Trump, who came to Gastonia on Wednesday, Sept. 16, to campaign for the former Republican National Committee chairman.
Whatley’s fundraising letter begins with a warning of what’s coming.
“This is the Hardest Letter I’ve Ever Had to Write,” the headline states.
Whatley then tells his supporters, “I have to be honest with you. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you’ve been with me from the beginning, and I need you to know the truth about where we stand.”
He said he’d just gotten off the phone with Republican leadership in Washington and then spoken with his campaign team.
“They tried to be encouraging, but when you put the numbers on the table – the grassroots energy versus the cold, hard cash being poured in by the liberal dark money machine – it doesn’t look good,” Whatley wrote.
Then the letter gets even more personal.
“I am more nervous than I’ve ever been in my life,” Whatley wrote. “I feel sick thinking about the possibility of failing President Trump.”
Whatley is running against former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper for the US Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
The race has attracted national attention because control of the Senate could depend on a small number of closely contested races around the country.
Whatley makes that argument directly in his appeal.
“If we don’t win this, we don’t control the Senate,” he wrote. “And without that majority, President Trump won’t be able to achieve anything he was sent back to DC to do. His legacy, the future of our conservative movement – it all comes down to what we do right here, right now, in this single, hyper-competitive fight.”
Then came the line that would normally make a campaign consultant reach for the delete key.
“And here is the part I’m truly not supposed to share: I’m dead in the water if we don’t hit our emergency fundraising daily goal.”
Whatley doesn’t provide a dollar figure for that daily goal or for the deficit he says the campaign is now facing.
He does, however, describe the situation in very dire terms.
“The liberal deficit is terrifying,” Whatley wrote. “They aren’t just outspending us; they are flooding the airwaves with lies, and their outside groups are pouring millions into this state to cement their progressive control.”
He also added, “I can’t come back from this deficit without an immediate surge of support from people like you who understand the stakes.”
Fundraising emails are designed to get people to open their wallets and they routinely use deadlines, emergencies and warnings of impending defeat to do it. So, the language isn’t necessarily a literal accounting of the campaign’s financial condition. But it does show a whole lot of worry.
The most recent Federal Election Commission figures currently available cover Whatley’s campaign finances through June 30. They show his authorized committees had reported about $11.3 million in total receipts and about $7.8 million in spending through that date.
But Whatley’s concern about the state of the race has some support in the public polling.
The RealClearPolitics average of North Carolina Senate polls through Sept. 17 showed Cooper at 49.4 percent and Whatley at 41.8 percent.
However, there’s considerable variation among individual polls.
An Insider Advantage poll conducted Sept. 16 and Sept. 17 had Cooper leading 48 percent to 43 percent, while a Quantus Insights poll conducted Sept. 14 through Sept. 16 had Cooper ahead 49 percent to 45 percent.
A Trafalgar Group poll conducted Sept. 8 through Sept. 10 had Cooper ahead 48 percent to 42 percent and an East Carolina University poll conducted Aug. 31 through Sept. 3 had Cooper leading 52 percent to 44 percent.
Those numbers help explain why Trump came to Gastonia to campaign personally for Whatley.
Trump used much of his speech to attack Cooper on crime while repeatedly praising Whatley – who Trump previously selected to lead the Republican National Committee.
“It was apple pie, right?” he said of North Carolina. “And now it’s one of the most violent and one of the worst in the whole nation.”
He then said, “And it all started with Cooper.”
In 2024, North Carolina had about 376 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, about 4.6 percent higher than the national rate of 359 per 100,000. But North Carolina’s rate was far below those of the states with the highest violent-crime rates, including Alaska at 724 per 100,000 and New Mexico at 717. North Carolina’s violent-crime rate also declined about 4.5 percent from 2023 to 2024.
Trump also called the former governor “terrible” and repeatedly accused him of being soft on violent criminals.
Trump told the Gastonia crowd that when he, Trump, had the opportunity to choose someone from anywhere in the country to lead the Republican Party, “I chose Michael Whatley.”
The president urged supporters to approach the Nov. 3 election as though he himself were on the ballot.
That support from Trump is central to Whatley’s own fundraising message.
Whatley closes his appeal by almost begging supporters to give whatever they can.
“I’m humbling myself completely before you,” Whatley wrote. “If you have any capacity to give this cycle – even a small amount like $5, $10, or $25 – I need you to give it to this race, and this race only. This isn’t a suggestion; it’s a plea.”
He continued, “I need your help. I need you to step into the gap with me, so I can go to DC and fight for the future we believe in and secure the Senate majority for President Trump.”
Then Whatley signs off with one final unusually personal line: “Thank you for letting me be vulnerable with you. I will never forget
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If anyone has too much money lying around, send it to Austin Morris, c/o The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC.
I’m sure Scott will forward it to me.
Or if you’d rather flush it down the toilet, send it to Michael Whatley. At least he’s honest enough to admit that he’s dead in the water.
If you send it to me, at least you’ll know that a boy from Wales enjoyed a few cold ones.
Iechyd Da!
And Diolch yn fawr.
——————-
And this morning’s news reports that even the national Republican Party is cancelling intended spending on this race.
When your own Party refuses to throw good money after bad, you know you’re finished.
I’d prefer 2 GOP Senators, but they made a mistake with this nobody. No personality, no charisma, no name recognition… no chance.
the president of ukraIne was a former TV comedian, elvis would be our president if still alive. majority rule or by the brightest & best? taylor swift for president!
Diga!
is diga the same as ola ?
I do love how the press purportedly reports the words of a politician as fact when it is far from it. If it was just a matter of money, I would remind this paper and all other media that the Republicans and the various PACs have much more money than their Democrat counterparts at this point, so Whatley needs not fear that. However, it is more than just money. Cooper and those who support him are worried. They are worried because until about a month ago, they held a double-digit lead. That lead has dwindled to under 7% and in this state, that is significant. More and more of Cooper`s gubernatorial record is coming out, and it is not a record on which he should be proud. Cooper is the wrong person to be the next Senator from this state.
Don’t I remember that Gov Cooper vetoed the Voter ID Bill? Not just once, but until a bipartisan State Legislature overrode his vetos !
A biggie. Flog it.
Well, Whatley got Trump to endorse him. But when he announced, most North Carolinians never heard of him. He has NEVER held elective office. Trump should direct big money to the campaign since he endorsed him. I can think of a few other Republicans who actually served our state that would be a much better choice. But Trump will always be the “bull in the china shop. Not much we can do about it. BTW: if Whately is scared of the Liberal “dark money” he should go get some of that Conservative dark money. I am fed up with politics. Neither party is righteous. They both participated in the US owing $40 trillion in debt. There is no plan to pay it off. At the same time, SS, Medicare, Medicaid are not financially viable long term. But the politicians will do nothing. They only response when they have no other easy way out. If politicians were parents, DPS would have taken their children away decades ago.
“ Neither party is righteous. They both participated in the US owing $40 trillion in debt. There is no plan to pay it off. At the same time, SS, Medicare, Medicaid are not financially viable long term. But the politicians will do nothing. They only response when they have no other easy way out”
Thank you Ken, your voice is a raindrop in a parched field. My logic tells me that politicians, and their followers , would not be in a race without financial incentives. I’ve never heard of a politician leaving their position with less money than they started with.
Our Supreme Court paved the way for BILLIONS to be spent on elections. “ those with the most toys wins”,
I’m all in favor of government paid elections where each candidate gets a set sum, same as their opponent.
You are dead on. Inflation IS wiping everyone out. Soon, we’ll all be dependent on Big Brother, if not now.
i am now with pension/SS. my ‘dog’ in ‘fight’
Whatley you worry about Failing Donald Trump? Really? What about YOU failing your constituents? Do you represent the people or are you going to be another puppet for Trump? Obviously you as many do not have the guts to defend what is correct and instead bow to Trump. If you are so worried, ask Trump to fund you. He has made billions with his worldwide schemes to defraud.
Amen! You are worried about ” failing Trump”? Apparently you don’t know how independent minded your constituents are. I’m not a fan of Cooper, but I’m not a fan of blind sheep either. Pathetic!
Cooper as a US Senator is unappealing at best, but I don’t believe elections are moved much by money. Elections are shifted in America by how much our wallets are perceived to contain, or moral beliefs. If Whatley wasn’t an entrenched Republican insider he likely would be doing better against Cooper. I’ll vote for Whatley because I want Pres. Trump to succeed from the midterms. I believe he has got China corralled over oil and has put America in a much better position to keep our hegemony intact. No one can save America from Congressional overspending and flagrant money printing. But, we don’t have to be organ donors for Chinese elite and forced to bend the knee to the CCP at the same time. Over the next 4-6 years crude oil is likely to go well over $200/bl. This will be very difficult for the CCP to handle. Trump’s success with Venezuela and Greenland will help us tremendously in navigating the next decade. Let’s hope we can build on this momentum and not throw away the opportunity.
“No one can save America from Congressional overspending and flagrant money printing”…..Yes. Yes, they can.
Step 1 – Stop cutting taxes without a plan to cut spending
Step 2 – Close tax loopholes that allow wealthy to avoid reporting all income.
Step 3 – Reform entitlement programs or increase taxes to balance budget.
Step 4 – Raise taxes overall all to balance budget
If you have another idea, would be great to hear it but seems simple to me.
Cheers
You are right! Your four steps are right on. But, Congress will not do it.
Whatley should know how to run an election if he has chaired the NC Republican Party and the RNC. Problem now is begging for money shows weakness and indicates a failing candidate. He is far enough behind that the RNC money will go elsewhere in the country where races are tighter.
As far as Trump goes, a person’s perspective on him may be a result of his or her position in life. If you are retired, the rise in the stock market is appealing and the culture war issues resonate well with an older generation of Americans but not with Gen Z. In your armchair, you may tend to forget how much anxiety $4.50 gas, inflated grocery prices, unaffordable healthcare costs, and a slew of other economic catastrophes cause families trying to commute to work and feed and clothe a houseful of kids.
As far as Trump’s foreign policy acumen, there is not enough room to list his many failures as Yemen attacks Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital, and shuts down the Strait of Bab al-Mandab to increase Iranian pressure on the Trump administration. He has alienated our allies, become a tool for the will of Netanyahu in the Middle East, and set the stage for the rise of The Chinese Century, which many have predicted for a long time. It will be interesting to see what he has to say during Xi Jinping’s visit and State Dinner. That is if Trump can get his lips off Xi’s rear end.
I would say if Trump could get his lips off Netanyahu rear end. What is wrong with Trump? Why so much allegiance to a tiny country, Israel, which uses our tax money to fight their wars. Why does the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, promote the idea that Israel has the right to take land of others for settlements? Israel desperately wants Lebanon.
It is my opinion that Israel and Jews begrudgingly accept the Catholic Church, certainly because they are wealthy. But I believe Israel and Jews view Christian Protestants as bumpkins who can be fooled and manipulated into giving large sums of money to Israeli Jews because the Protestants mistakenly believe that Jews and Israel play an important part at the end times as written in the Bible.
When it is learned that a group can be exploited, they are exploited. I feel especially sad for small churches in the US that take their small donations from their congregants and send money to Israel.
Please stop listening to these Christian evangelists. Evangelists should return to their original intent, conversion. Sending money to a secular government and supporting a secular government is not what Christian congregants should do. It reminds me of the money changers in the temple because that is where the money is going.
The only democratic country in the mid east is Israel. The only thing keeping terrorist organizations from concentrating on other countries is Israel. The goal of the terrorist groups is to wipe Jews from the face of the earth and death to America and it is clearly stated in their signs of protest. Some
Muslims when they come to our country want to live separately from what our is. Read about Epic City Texas where no non Muslims are allowed or see the youtube of a reporter who just asked to see the Mosque and was told he could not as he was not Muslim. Lebanon has
enough of Hamas and is working with Israel. So if Israel
lose we lose as well – any oil imports, the Jewish population and the hatred of their leaders who wish to destroy us.
Ann, Israel is a warmonger. I believe that one of the goals of Muslim nations is to wipe out Jews from the Middle East. If this can be gained by Jews moving to other locations, so be it. I do not believe that the goal of Israel’s surrounding neighbors is to kill all Jews.
Had the Holocaust not happened, there would be no country of Israel today in my opinion. There were committed Zionist, a Jewish nationalist movement that started in the late 1800s advocating for a Jewish homeland. This was many, many years before the Holocaust. But it was the concentration camps, the killing of Jews for being Jewish, and General Eisenhour’s entrance into the concentration camps and photographing what he and his troops saw that caused outrage and opened the door for the Jewish state of Israel. The land known as Mandatory Palestine was petitioned off by the UN, and part of the territory became Israel. Palestine has a legitimate claim to land in the area. Israel needs to be made to understand this. Financing their wars is not what the United States should be doing.
As far as Muslim immigrants, they should not be allowed into the US and all who are here should be deported. They are not here to assimilate and become American. On the contrary, they want to set themselves apart, build their mosques, and little by little take over our government. I view the Muslim problem as a fight for survival of the US. As you so correctly pointed out, look at Texas. I would add one more example, Dearborn, Michigan.
This is a good time to remind people that the Rhino Times posts remarks where it agrees with what is stated or does not agree.
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The Balfour Declaration was made in 1917, but it’s agreed that the Holocaust expedited the creation of the state of Israel.
Despite the warm support of the British government, a nasty and vicious Zionist terrorist outfit called Irgun began atrocities against the British Military administering the Mandate in Palestine WHILE WE WERE FIGHTING THE NAZIS, in February 1944.
You would have thought that Jewish people would not have been killing British soldiers while we were still trying to defeat the Nazis, but that’s what they did.
Even more disgustingly, the leader of Irgun – who liked to kill British soldiers by hanging them with piano wire – was later elected Prime Minister of Israel.
Menachem Begin was a terrorist, and an evil soulless man for whom the end justified the means – just like the Nazis.
But as they say, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. And the Jews have succeeded in controlling the narrative.
Deus Vult!
What do you think is God’s will?
let me rephrase that: What do u think is God’s think ?
Has everyone forgotten how high gas prices were under Biden? And mostly because he shut down the pipeline ( which was routed through rural areas) so his buddy could profit from carrying that fuel in tank cars on his railroads? Then there was that crash which burned half of a small town……
I don’t remember how many humans it killed.
And you’re complaining about the gas prices now? Trump is trying to eradicate Iran as a global threat, which the last several presidents have said they were going to do….. It’s taking longer than expected, but Iran will cease to threaten the Middle East , and the world.
High gas and diesel prices, and the results felt elsewhere, are the sacrifices citizens have to make if they want to stop Iran. The President needs to ask the citizens for their help.
The cult is strong with these two.
The pipeline had nothing to do with gas prices…..it wasn’t even in use. It had everything to do with global disruption of supply due to covid. This time it has everything to do with disruption of supply due to Iran war.
Trump’s failed war with Iran was never needed. Do you feel safer?
Unfortunately, Iran will be intact and quite impactful in the region for years to come. Considering he loves Putin, Trump didn’t learn a thing from Russia invading Ukraine. The ONLY way Iran collapses is boots on the ground and we all know that will never happen. So this mess just gets messier!
Unfortunately, Trump listened to his son-in-law, and to Israel. Trump should not have entered the war. A big mistake, and a broken promise. I put a great deal of importance on keeping promises. This does not keep me from supporting other policies of Trump. But if he were running again, which he can’t, I would give pause to vote for him again. I hate war.
the photo doesn’t synch with the headline. i am reevaluating ‘dead’ ‘water’ ‘money’
Let’s look at a poll taken by the Center for Strategic Politics of Democrats who want Trump out of office by (almost) any means. The poll demonstrates Democrats prioritizing self-interest or power over integrity.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dMBa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa3e3beef-dd7f-4c7e-8cf4-a70c3bdafa73_1192x1460.png?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Vote for Whatley.
YES !
Oh wow a poll that shows Democrats think Trump is bad for the country. Oooooo.
Vote Cooper. He is a moderate in a word of extremes.
Cheers
It is a poll that shows how morally corrupt the Socialist Democrats are, wanting Trump removed from office by any means. The poll shows a lack of intellect replaced with emotional fervor. This portends at least two years of government turmoil and inaction should the Socialist Democrats gain control of Congress. Vote for Cooper at your own peril.
Thank you, professor, for giving me the opportunity to explain how bad Socialist Democrats are for the country.
Vote for Whatley.
I will not vote for the Trump pick when Trump calls North Carolina a “disaster”. I like this State and the people in this state and it is a fine place.
North Carolina is a great State! Life lone Carolinian and damn proud of it.
this mongrel yankee loves it too & i know why u b “lone’
I want a third option in this race. No matter who wins, representing taxpayers in North Carolina will take a back seat. With Cooper you get a lapdog for the DNC and the left, no matter how much he talks in ads about good old NC. Same with Whatley on the right…..a lapdog for Trump who has been involved in partisan politics his whole career. NC is screwed either way, at least Budd is still there.
Whatley is the better of the two.
Vote Whatley.
Please don’t distort the truth. Trump was not referring to North Carolina as a disaster; he was referring to crime in NC. Cooper sycophants will say that crime is lower. What they are considering is all crimes including crimes without bodily harm. While any crime is not acceptable, the release of 3,500(+) criminals and then Cooper lying that he had no choice but to release the inmates is NOT acceptable because it is a lie. This action confirms that Cooper is in the pocket of the NAACP, since for whatever reason, the NAACP has a strong hold over the NC Democrat party.
Roy Cooper has been coddled by his sycophants because they are hangers-on to what they perceive as their ticket to the bigger and better things that politics can provide.
Roy Cooper is touted as a public servant, having served in elected office for 40 years. I don’t view having an elected office for 40 years as serving. I view the 40 years as a lazy man who is work-averse but likes to be catered to.
So you are just as upset about Trump releasing ~500 violent criminals who attacked Capitol Police on J6?
Statewide violent crime declined under Coopers leadership. So help me understand how that shows Cooper is soft on crime other than posting the misinformation and false talking points conservatives continue to make about the release of prisons as a result of a lawsuit.
Vote for Cooper. He wants to focus on what really matter to Americans versus a bunch of conspiracy theories that conservatives want to foucs on.
Cheers