Roy Cooper’s Greatest Flops. A report card on his results.
Is Roy laughing at us, or with us? Either way - actions speak much louder than words and his report card has a lot of F’s.
Start with the basics. BAD FOR FAMILIES (D+)
He wants to be sold as the steady, sensible grown-up in the room but North Carolina’s numbers tell a harsher story. Under Roy’s nearly 40 year career, the state became a showcase for “business-friendly” bragging rights paired with working-class stagnation. North Carolina’s median household income is $73,958 and ranks 36th among states [2024 data], meaning we’re not talking about a state that’s “winning” for families so much as one that’s surviving below the national middle. The Cooper-era political class loves ribbon cuttings, but the lived reality is that too many North Carolinians are one missed paycheck away from disaster. Roy Cooper and the policies he pushed in Raleigh helped to create this emergency. Source Census Data
Wages stay the same, the price of everything continues to climb. This doesn’t end well when 60% of America is paycheck to paycheck.
GREAT FOR BIG BUSINESS (F’d US) & RACE TO THE BOTTOM FOR WORKERS (F)
Then there’s the corporate tax obsession. North Carolina’s corporate income tax is 2.25% (already among the lowest), and current law phases it down to 0% in 2030! A deliberate choice baked into the state budget bill Cooper signed. That’s how you get splashy headlines like CNBC naming North Carolina a top state for business. However “#1 for business” means very little if the payoff is a race to the bottom where working people struggle while schools and public services get told to “do more with less.”
Labor is the clearest example of who this model serves. In 2024, North Carolina had the lowest union membership rate in the United States: 2.4%. That’s not some neutral cultural quirk; it’s the predictable result of a political environment where worker power is treated as a nuisance and corporate “flexibility” is treated as sacred. Weak unions don’t just weaken paychecks. They weaken safety, benefits, retirement security, and the basic ability of working people to negotiate with billion-dollar employers on anything resembling fair terms.
Sources Bureau of Labor Statistics (NCDOR) (NC Commerce)
HORRIBLE FOR OUR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION (F)
On Roy Cooper’s watch:
#48 of 50 - TEACHER PAY
#49 of 50 - Dollars spent PER STUDENT in NC
The children alive today are the leaders we get tomorrow, yet since the No Child Left Behind legislation it has truly felt as though the country is in a backslide with regards to education. So while the “business climate” gets polished like a trophy, public education gets treated like an afterthought. Recent analyses have North Carolina near the bottom nationally on school funding and teacher pay metrics, with the state ranking 48th on starting teacher salary in NEA data and near-last in multiple education funding comparisons. You can’t build a durable economy by starving the very system that produces your workforce unless there’s a nefarious goal of a low-wage pipeline and a grateful labor pool. Source National Education Association
WESTERN NC WAS FAILED (D)
Cooper also sells himself as a competent crisis manager yet North Carolina’s hurricane recovery track record has repeatedly attracted criticism, scrutiny, and public frustration. After Tropical Storm/Hurricane Helene in Sept 2024, Cooper’s administration issued emergency declarations and sought federal disaster aid, but the scale of devastation and the long recovery highlighted lingering concerns about how disaster relief is managed and delivered in North Carolina. Even when leaders do the right “press conference steps,” what people remember is whether rebuilding happens fast, fairly, and transparently.
GIVE MONEY —> INSERT POLICY STANCE (F)
How can you ask millions of people to vote for you without saying what you stand for or against? This is the part that should insult every voter’s intelligence: despite raising enormous sums for a Senate run (reporting over $14 million in a quarter and $10.8 million in the campaign account, per FEC reporting), Cooper’s campaign web presence has no clearly labeled, detailed “Issues” platform page the public can review at a glance. Yet they are happy to lean hard into donation and signup funnels instead. When a politician has money on tap but policies on mute, it’s usually because the strategy is to coast on name recognition and vibes not accountability. Source KEYE
Who is he actually fighting for?
NC is #1 for business with a 2.25% corporate tax rate that goes down to 0% in 2030 at a time when most of America is paycheck to paycheck. To me, this is a moral and ethical abandonment of helping the average constituent.
COOPER THE POOPER SCOOPER (Failed the working class)
Finally, the “career politician” critique isn’t rhetoric; it’s biography. Cooper has been in elected office since the mid-1980s, after joining a law firm that his father helped found, and he’s now 68. That’s an entire lifetime inside the political ecosystem that produced the status quo. If Washington feels like a lawyer’s conference call with corporate sponsors on hold, it’s because it has been. America doesn’t need more polished attorneys fluent in donor-friendly half-measures; it needs leaders who speak plainly, understand service, and will fight for structural change without asking permission.
MORE STATUS QUO? Or is it Justin Time for something else?
That’s why the Dues campaign is the alternative: plain spoken, morally direct, and unapologetically bold. Instead of chasing “#1 for business” headlines while families fall behind, I’m offering a government that measures success by whether working people can afford housing, healthcare, and dignity — and whether the rules apply to the powerful as much as everyone else. Please spend some time researching the policy stances that I’ve laid forth versus his lack thereof.
ROY COOPER’S REPORT CARD (1987-2025)
FAMILY INCOME = D+
WORKER PROTECTION = F
BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT = F
EDUCATION = F
ENVIRONMENTAL = D
POLICY STANCES = F
If you still need a quick recap to let it sink in, check out this reel of greatest flops.
Made NC nearly bottom 10 for Household income.
Made NC #1 for business with 2.25% corporate tax rate that goes down to 0% in 2030 at a time when most of America is paycheck to paycheck.
NC has lowest rate in the United States for Union Density at 2.4%.
NC is #49th in dollars spent per student / 48th in teacher pay.
Lifelong politician / spoon-fed / never worked a real job other than as a lawyer for his dad. DC needs less attorneys and more veterans.
Hurricane Helene response.
$10+ million dollar political war chest yet his campaign website shows absolutely zero policy stances.
Already nearly 70 years old - held office before I turned 1 year old - I’m now 40.