Roy Cooper (born June 13, 1957) is a prominent North Carolina Democrat who served as the state's 75th governor from 2017 to 2025. Before that, he was the state's attorney general for nearly 16 years (2001–2017), making him the longest-serving attorney general in North Carolina history. In 2016, he made history by narrowly defeating Republican incumbent Pat McCrory, becoming the first challenger in the state's history to unseat a sitting governor. Despite facing a Republican-dominated legislature that tried to strip his powers, he successfully negotiated a statewide Medicaid expansion and was reelected in 2020. Raised on a tobacco farm in Nashville, NC, and a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, Cooper is now the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in the 2026 election, facing Republican Michael Whatley.