TYNER — Governor Roy Cooper told reporters Wednesday that he has not been approached by Vice President Kamala Harris about serving as her vice presidential running mate in this fall’s presidential election.
Cooper was in Chowan County for a dedication ceremony Apex Clean Energy held to celebrate completion of the first wind turbines in what will be its 45-turbine Timbermill Wind project in the northern end of the county. The governor signed his name to a blade on one of the completed wind turbines during the event.
While Cooper was in attendance to celebrate Apex’s wind energy project, a lot of the questions he received at a press conference at the event centered on speculation that he is among the handful of Democrats Harris is considering to be her vice presidential running mate in the Nov. 5 election against former Republican President Donald Trump and his vice presidential running mate, Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance.
Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president this fall after President Joe Biden announced Sunday he was ending his campaign for re-election to a second term and instead endorsing her. Biden made the decision after several weeks of growing alarm among Democrats about his vigor for a fall campaign and second four-year term following his disastrous debate performance against former President Trump last month.
Cooper said Wednesday he has not talked with Harris about being her running mate.
“I talked with her about winning in November,” Cooper said. “She has been in North Carolina 15 times since she has been vice president, and I’ve met with her every time. So we’ve talked about a lot of issues. You know her process on vice president selection. We have not” spoken about that.
While he denied having been approached about serving as Harris’ vice president, Cooper did not say if he had been asked to submit to a background vetting process the Harris campaign is expected to use prior to her announcing her vice presidential choice.
Cooper said Harris and her campaign have told him that they see a chance to turn North Carolina “blue” this November.
“I’m very excited about her campaign. She has solidified Democrats,” he said.
Cooper also noted that initial support for Harris’ presidential campaign had sprung from the Democratic Party’s grass-roots, not its leadership.
“It’s been a bottom up thing,” he said. “When she announced (she was running to succeed President Biden) there were a number of states, including North Carolina, whose delegates met on their own and voted to endorse her. We saw millions of dollars being collected online, and in fact, a lot of those came from donors who had never given before. I’m excited about that.”
Cooper indicated he expects to see Harris back in the state a number of times prior to election day.
“You’ll be speaking with her again because North Carolina is in play (in the fall election),” he said. “We heard from (Harris) campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon today that they were expanding their map (of potential winning states) and North Carolina was on it.”
Cooper suggested Trump also believes North Carolina is in play in the presidential race, even though the former president won the state’s electoral votes in his two previous presidential bids in 2016 and 2020.
“Donald Trump is obviously worried because he’s coming to Charlotte today. … I believe that we can win,” Cooper said, adding that he is content to do his job as governor because the state has a lot of important things going on right now, including ramping up clean energy efforts.
The Timbermill Wind project is one of two commercial wind energy projects in North Carolina. The other is the 104-turbine Amazon Wind Farm U.S. East project in nearby Pasquotank County. No offshore developments have been constructed.
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