HENDERSONVILLE — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper responded Aug. 20 to a new attack attempting to tie him to a South Carolina murder, capping a campaign stop focused largely on what he described as an affordability crisis squeezing North Carolina families.
Cooper spoke to more than 200 people at Oklawaha Brewing in Hendersonville as part of his “Make Stuff Cost Less” tour, arguing that wages have failed to keep pace with the cost of everything from groceries and electricity to health care and child care.
Mandy Gibson, a mother of two who said she and her husband both work for Henderson County Public Schools, spoke about her family’s struggle to find and afford child care. Gibson said they began looking before their first child was born
but did not find an opening until she was a year and a half old, at a cost of $220 a week.
The expense soon became “out of reach,” Gibson said.
“When we had our second child and stared down an over $23,000 childcare bill a year, we just knew that was out of reach,” she said.
Gibson said her parents ultimately moved from Charlotte to help care for the children, an option she acknowledged many families do not have.
Ramona Henderson Bryson, a retired Buncombe County Schools teacher, followed Gibson with a story centered on health care costs. Henderson said her husband, a retired plumber, Marine Corps veteran and former Mills River volunteer firefighter, has suffered three heart attacks — his first while responding to a house fire — and undergone spinal fusion surgery three times.
Henderson said their monthly health insurance premium jumped last year from $541 to nearly $900.
“That extra $400 is something we can't manage,” Bryson said.
Cooper used the two stories to broaden his case that families across North Carolina are being hit from several directions at once, with higher everyday expenses compounded by federal policy decisions he said are making matters worse.
He blamed the war in Iran for higher fuel prices and increased financial strain on military families, while criticizing tariffs supported by Whatley that Cooper said are raising costs for consumers and small businesses.
Health care was another recurring theme. Cooper described the fears of a mother whose child with cerebral palsy depends on Medicaid, arguing that federal cuts scheduled to take effect after the election could leave families without coverage. He also said recent federal policy changes have already pushed insurance premiums higher.
Cooper proposed rolling back tariffs, restoring health care funding and creating a child care tax credit as ways Congress could reduce household expenses.
For Western North Carolina, Cooper tied affordability to the unfinished recovery from Tropical Storm Helene. He said the federal government has provided only 15% of the $60 billion the state says is needed for full recovery and cited outstanding costs for property buyouts, roads, water systems and public buildings. Whatley was appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as the “Helene recovery czar” in early 2025.
Cooper also warned that Social Security could become another source of financial pressure. He said benefits are on track to fall 22% in 2032 unless Congress acts, which he said could amount to an average reduction of about $500 a month for nearly 2 million retired North Carolinians who rely on the entitlement program.
He contrasted his record with Whatley’s, criticizing his Republican opponent’s past work as a “D.C. insider” and lobbyist for oil and utility interests while arguing that Whatley has sided with corporations at the expense of consumers.
Cooper pushes back
Cooper also attacked Whatley’s public safety credentials, noting his appointment of convicted sex offender Harvey L. West Jr. to the Republican Party’s plan of organization twice, despite objections from within the party. Cooper countered that he had prosecuted violent criminals and sex offenders before becoming governor and had signed legislation tightening bail requirements and increasing penalties for gang members and people who attack law enforcement officers with guns.
That argument came into sharper focus after Cooper’s speech.
Asked about efforts by Whatley and his allies to portray him as soft on crime, the Citizen Times referenced a Whatley-aligned super PAC ad invoking the murder of Logan Federico, whose accused killer had been released from a South Carolina jail before allegedly killing Federico in South Carolina months after Cooper’s tenure as governor of North Carolina had ended.
Historically, North Carolina’s governors have not been involved with criminal justice policy in South Carolina.
Cooper said the tragedy was being exploited for political purposes.
“This ad is about a South Carolina man who was let out of a South Carolina jail who committed a crime in South Carolina, and that is a lie to say that I had anything to do with that,” Cooper told the Citizen Times Aug. 20.
In a follow-up, Cooper was asked whether he would support “Logan’s Law,” legislation sponsored by the late South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham that would establish a publicly searchable federal database of violent criminals. Cooper told the Citizen Times he had not read the proposal but would.
“I am in favor of giving law enforcement all the tools that it needs to be able to apprehend criminals and to prevent crimes,” he said. “I would be happy to review any legislation and work with anybody on either side of the aisle to make sure that the public is safer.”
Cory Vaillancourt is the Helene Recovery/Investigations Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Find him on X at @The_CoryV or on Signal, via email at cvaillancourt@citizentimes.com or at 912-508-5640.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Roy Cooper calls ad linking him to SC murder a lie during WNC stop
