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I want to tell you about a decision I don’t regret for a second.
In 2022, I flipped North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District from red to blue. It was one of only six Republican seats in the entire country that Democrats won that year. In a brutal cycle, in a purple state, we did it.
Then Republicans in Raleigh took it away without a single vote being cast. They redrew the map and erased my district. The people who elected me were moved into other districts, and the seat I won was gone with them.
I’m not telling you this so you’ll feel bad for me. I’m telling you because it’s the whole problem in one story.
Gerrymandering is wrecking the US Congress. When politicians get to pick their voters, they draw themselves safe seats where the only threat is a primary from the far right or the far left. So they govern to the extremes. Out of 435 House seats, only around 10% are genuinely competitive anymore. The other 90% are locked up in low-turnout primaries before a single general-election vote is cast, meaning few people in Congress have any real incentive to work across the aisle.
So I didn’t just complain about it. I authored the FAIR MAPS Act and introduced it in Congress. It would take map-drawing away from politicians and hand it to independent, nonpartisan redistricting commissions in every state. Duke researchers found a national law like it would double the number of competitive seats in the House. More competition means more accountability, and members who actually have to answer to all their voters.
There’s only one way to fix this for good, and it’s not complicated. You pass a national law banning partisan gerrymandering. Hakeem Jeffries and House Democrats will pass my bill as soon as they have the votes. I have no doubt about it. The House isn’t the problem.
The Senate is the problem. A gerrymandering ban dies in the Senate as long as the filibuster lets a Republican minority block it. The only way it ever becomes law is if Democrats take the Senate, carve out an exception to the filibuster for the fundamental rights that shouldn’t hang on a procedural rule — abortion, voting rights, and an end to partisan gerrymandering — and then pass the bills.
And the clearest path to flipping the Senate runs through North Carolina.
Which brings me to the decision I want to tell you about.
The race I started
When Republicans gerrymandered me out of my seat, I could have cashed in. A former congressman can go make a boatload of money lobbying, and plenty do. That’s not what I did. I looked at our U.S. Senate seat and thought: that’s a fight worth having.
So I started running, and I gave it everything I had. I believe in this state, and I know we’ve got to fix a broken political system. I lived that. I wasn’t going to watch from the sidelines. For a while, I was all in.
Then Roy Cooper got in
I’ll be straight with you, because you deserve that. I always believed Roy was the strongest candidate we could put up for this seat. Two-term governor, four-term attorney general, six statewide wins and no losses. He left office more popular than the day he walked in. If you built a candidate in a lab to flip North Carolina blue, you’d build Roy Cooper.
I just never thought he’d run, and I never thought Thom Tillis would step down. When both happened, the math got simple. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was pretty easy.
I could have stayed in and made it a primary. Democrats trading punches while Trump takes a wrecking ball to the Constitution. So I got out of the way and endorsed Roy. A united Democratic Party focused on sending Trump a message is how we flip this seat. A bruising primary is how we hand it away. That mattered more to me than staying in the race. It still does.
Why Roy, specifically
Let me tell you what kind of governor Roy Cooper was, because it's the same thing that will make him a great US senator.
I was in the North Carolina State Senate from 2019 to 2023. Those were hard years to be a Democrat in that building. We were outnumbered. But we had one job that mattered more than any other: hold the line on Roy’s vetoes. And we did. Every single time. Roy vetoed some very bad bills, and Republicans never once overrode him while I was there. Our votes were the firewall between a good governor and a legislature itching to run him over, and that firewall held the whole time.
That’s what Roy does to the opposition. They couldn’t beat him at the ballot box in six statewide races. For years they couldn’t even override his veto and it was good for public policy in our state. Democrats and Republicans had to work together and we’re all better off for it.
He’s also just a really good guy
Roy and I go back. He encouraged me to run for the NC Senate in 2018. Right after I won my seat, he came to Cary and headlined a fundraiser for me. A sitting governor showing up in my hometown for a brand-new state senator. I never forgot it.
So when people ask why I endorsed him, the head answer is easy. He’s the best shot we’ve had at this seat in forty years. But the gut answer is simpler. He showed up for North Carolina, and I’m going to show up for him. And I don’t mean a press release and a retweet. Right after I got out of the race, I hosted a fundraiser for Roy at my home. Endorsing him was never the point. Getting him elected is.
Now for the hard truth
I don’t want to oversell this, so I’ll give it to you straight.
The good news is real. Roy is running a terrific campaign, and the Cook Political Report recently moved this race from toss-up to lean Democrat, calling it the GOP-held seat Democrats are most likely to flip in the entire country. That’s not spin. It’s from the most respected race-rating group in the business.
But this is a tough fight. It’s always a tough fight in a 50/50 state. Want to know how tough? Since Terry Sanford won in 1986, Democrats have won a U.S. Senate race in North Carolina exactly twice. John Edwards in 1998. Kay Hagan in 2008. Forty years, two wins.
That’s the hill we’re climbing. Roy Cooper is the best candidate we’ve had to climb it in a long time. And the other side knows it and they’re going to spend an ungodly amount of dark money to try and stop him.
So here’s my ask
I’m asking you to do exactly what I did: get in this fight.
You can split a donation between my campaign and Roy’s with a single click. It’s the simplest way to keep me doing this work and help send Roy Cooper to the United States Senate, where North Carolina needs him.
SPLIT MY DONATION → [ [link removed] ]
Thanks for being in this fight. It matters more than it ever has.
Back to work.
— Wiley
P.S. On Wednesday, September 16th, Jeff Jackson is joining me for a fundraising lunch [ [link removed] ] in downtown Raleigh. I hope you can save the date and join us for a great seated lunch. It’s the one big event we’re working on this year.
Hit this link to join us on September 16th → [ [link removed] ]
PAID FOR AND AUTHORIZED BY WILEY FOR WAKE

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