Illegal Immigrant Crime Could Tip The Scales In North Carolina’s Crucial Senate Race

When twice-deported Honduran illegal immigrant Oscar Gerardo Solorzano-Garcia allegedly fatally stabbed a passenger on a North Carolina train, the incident immediately drew national attention.

“Another stabbing by an Illegal Migrant in Charlotte, North Carolina,” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social. “What’s going on in Charlotte? Democrats are destroying it, like everything else, piece by piece!!!”

But North Carolina had become a flashpoint in the national immigration debate well before Trump’s post. The Department of Homeland Security has been conducting “Operation Charlotte’s Web” in the region, which has yielded over 400 arrests so far, according to WBTV.

Michael Whatley, a Republican Senate candidate in the state and the former Republican National Committee chairman, told The Daily Wire that immigration-related woes are no surprise, as the Biden-era crisis turned “every state, including North Carolina, into border states.”

The Republican is poised to face off against Democrat Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s former governor, in one of 2026’s most hotly competitive races If elected, the Republican said that “we need to make sure that ICE is going to be funded,” along with Border Patrol.

He also took a jab at Cooper, who left office at the start of this year, for his immigration stances. The Democrat vetoed House Bill 10 last November, which would have required sheriffs to work with ICE. His veto was overturned by the North Carolina General Assembly.

“He has set up a revolving door for criminals in North Carolina,” he said. “He is fighting harder for criminals and illegal aliens than for his own constituents as governor.”

“When we talk about going into the Senate, ultimately it’s a vote, and it’s going to be a vote for the president and his agenda, or it’s gonna be a vote for Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer and the rest of the card-carrying woke mob that Roy Cooper belongs to,” Whatley continued.

“Roy Cooper is the only candidate who spent his career prosecuting violent criminals and keeping thousands of them behind bars as attorney general, and signing tough-on-crime laws and stricter bail and pretrial release rules as governor,” a Cooper campaign spokesman told The Daily Wire.

Whatley also pushed back on the notion that some Trump voters were surprised at how immigration enforcement was going to be conducted. On the campaign trail, signs even said “Mass Deportation Now.”

“The fact is, the American people voted for security. They voted for safe communities and safe kids, right? They voted to shut down the border. They voted to deport violent, criminal, illegal aliens,” Whatley said.

“President Trump made it very clear that that was his plan. So any voter who was voting on those issues knew that the president was going to be moving very forcefully to get this done. And that we’re seeing those protests and in a lot of different places is a little bit surprising to me,” he continued. “But you also have paid organizations that are out there, you know, fomenting these protests as a very real point.”

Whatley said that immigration is likely to be a top issue once again in 2026, along with the economy.

“We need the economy to be clicking. I think ultimately the economy is the most important factor when people vote, right? We need to create jobs, we need to raise wages, we need to lower costs,” he said. “And the American people need to feel like we have a very strong economy. All signs right now are pointing towards us having a very strong, robust economy.”