North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who had been on a short list of possible running mates for Vice President Kamala Harris, withdrew himself from consideration for the No. 2 spot, he said on social media late Monday.

Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on July 21. And Cooper, a longtime friend and political ally of Harris, was seen as a possible vice presidential pick in part because he has been able to win over moderates in a state that tends to vote for Republican presidential candidates.

Other WRAL Top Stories

“I was honored to be considered for this role,” Cooper said on X, formerly Twitter. “This just wasn't the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket. As I've said from the beginning, she has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we'll all work to make sure she wins.”

Harris’s team is still vetting a number of other vice presidential candidates. She is believed to be considering U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and others.

Two sources directly involved in Harris’s search for a running mate told NBC News that Cooper informed the Harris campaign that he didn’t want to be considered for the position.

One person told NBC that Cooper took himself out of the mix because he wants to run for the U.S. Senate in 2026, when incumbent Republican Thom Tillis could seek a third term. The person said Cooper never indicated to the campaign that he wanted to be vice president.

The governor withdrew well before Harris' vetting process began and never submitted the requisite material, two people familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive search process.

Cooper, the former chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, is term-limited and can’t run for governor a third time. He hasn’t lost an election in his political career, and managed to win his gubernatorial races in years when Republicans carried North Carolina. His term expires in January.

Cooper also had concerns that the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, would try to assume control if he left the state to campaign as part of the Democratic ticket, three people familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.

Spokespeople for Cooper didn’t immediately respond to WRAL’s requests for comment late Monday. Earlier in the day, a Cooper spokesman declined to comment on the possibility of a nomination.

Harris is expected to officially accept her party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention this month in Chicago. Former President Donald Trump is the Republican nominee for the third consecutive presidential contest. U.S. Sen. JD Vance, from Ohio, is the Republican vice presidential nominee.

‘We can hold the key’

Shortly after releasing his statement Monday, Cooper spoke on a call for white male supporters of Harris. He didn’t reference his decision or the vice presidency. He criticized Republicans for their treatment of women and implored the men on the call to vote and work for Harris.

“Real men respect women — their decisions, their careers — and it's pretty clear that Donald Trump and JD Vance don't,” Cooper said. “From Trump's sexual assaults to Vance's misogynistic comments, it's pretty clear that disrespect of women permeates Donald Trump-land and MAGA Republicans. And, in fact, it's like that all over the country.”

Cooper then walked through a series of previous comments made by North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running to replace Cooper as governor. Cooper spoke for less than five minutes.

“President Trump is loved by millions of women across the country, and those who know him personally, myself included, will tell you he’s supportive, generous, and kind,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s national campaign press secretary, said in a statement on Friday. “President Trump’s first-term economic policies uplifted women by putting more money in our pockets, and he also made expanding access to child care and paid family leave top priorities in his administration, and he will do so again.”

Spokespeople for Robinson didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“We know that this country needs Kamala Harris more than ever right now, and we can hold the key,” Cooper said. “Now, I'm not the political scientist or the pollsters but I know enough to know — and I've seen enough polling results or outcomes in elections to know — that if white males would vote 1 to 2% more for Democrats than they usually do, then we win this race. We win Kamala Harris's race. We win Democratic races in North Carolina.”

Cooper could be a contender for a Cabinet post in a Harris’ administration. Biden alluded to just that during a campaign visit to Raleigh last month — before Biden left the race. But Cooper has kept his intentions close to his vest.

In the weeks before Biden withdrew from the race, Cooper appeared with Harris at campaign events in Greensboro and Fayetteville. When asked about the possibility of a Harris-Cooper ticket earlier this month, he declined to comment, calling the rumors “the kind of speculation we do not need right now.”

Late last year, when WRAL interviewed Cooper about economic development in the state, he also sidestepped questions about his plans for after the 2024 elections. “I don't even think about that,” he said. “... Really what I think about is what I can get done tomorrow, and the next day.”

Balancing the ticket

Cooper was seen as someone who could add balance to a ticket with Harris, who is aiming to be the first woman president and who has been painted by Republicans as being to the far left extremes of her party. Harris, a Californian, is Black and South Asian. Cooper is a straight, Southern white male governor who is largely seen as a moderate but who has drawn sharp contrasts with North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature over Medicaid expansion, abortion, voting rights and public education funding.

Cooper and Harris have bonded over their similarities He served 16 years as the state’s attorney general. It was in that role that Cooper first met Harris, who served in the same position in California.

North Carolina has been a top priority for Democrats this year after Biden lost the state by about 1 percentage point — fewer than 75,000 votes — in 2020. Some political science research indicates that a vice presidential candidate could be worth up to 3 percentage points in the running mate’s home state, said David McLennan, a political scientist at Meredith College in Raleigh.

The exclusion of Cooper, though, indicates that Democrats don’t see North Carolina as critical in their path to victory. Indeed, Biden proved in 2020 that it’s possible to lose the state and still win the White House.

Had the governor been picked, it would have made North Carolina more competitive. It wouldn’t have automatically flipped to Harris, but it might have put enough pressure on Republicans for Democrats to continue pouring money into the state, said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. “What we need to be watching is, what does the Harris campaign do when it comes to North Carolina? Do they continue the kind of attention that Joe Biden was giving it? Or do they move their resources to another state that they might think is a better chance of victory for them?” he said.

The last North Carolina politician to be on a national ticket was in 2004 when U.S. Sen. John Edwards was the Democratic nominee for vice president on a ticket headed by John Kerry. Kerry-Edwards lost to incumbents George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Roy Cooper twice won the governor’s mansion with Trump on the ticket, defeating incumbent Republican Pat McCrory in 2016 and besting Dan Forest in 2020. Trump carried North Carolina in both years, though he won by less than 1.5 percentage points in 2020. Cooper earned more votes than Trump in both elections, suggesting his appeal across party lines.

Republicans have won North Carolina in 10 of the last 11 presidential contests with Barack Obama’s 2008 win the lone exception. Democrats targeted North Carolina, the closest state won by Trump in 2020, even before Biden decided not to accept the nomination. Harris has visited the state seven times in 2024. A victory in North Carolina with its 16 electoral votes would open several pathways to the presidency for Democrats, while significantly hampering the Republican ticket’s chances.

A poll conducted from July 22 to July 24 from The Telegraph found Trump leading Harris 46-43 in North Carolina with third-party candidates included.

“If Harris wins, certainly there's a possibility that he gets a prime cabinet spot," said Chris Cooper, who is not related to the governor. "Could Roy Cooper be the next attorney general of the United States? If Harris wins, he certainly could. There's no telling, but I think a position in the Harris cabinet would be a possibility. If he doesn't go that route, then the 2026 U.S. Senate seat is one thing he will certainly be eyeballing.”

The Robinson factor

Under the state constitution, Robinson, who is the GOP's nominee to replace Roy Cooper, would become acting governor and can assume the Democrat's powers when he travels out of state.

The governor has expressed concern about what Robinson might do if he were to leave the state extensively for campaign travel, people familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.

The governor's legal team, as well as some outside experts, don’t believe Robinson would actually assume the powers that accompany being governor, such as issuing executive orders. But the governor was concerned enough, one of the people familiar with the matter said, that Robinson would try to take action that could prompt litigation and spur distractions in North Carolina, one of the most critical political states nationwide both for the presidency and in its gubernatorial race.

Robinson is an ardent social conservative, who once called abortion “child sacrifice.” In various church pulpits, Robinson has asserted men as the rightful leaders in church and society. He once mused that leaders of the original birth control movement in the U.S. were “witches, all of ’em.” He has discussed LGBTQ people with words like “filth” and “maggots."

WRAL Capitol Bureau Chief Laura Leslie and WRAL Anchor/Reporter Julian Grace contributed to this report. Material from the Associated Press was also incorporated into this article.