Mike From Michigan Goes to Dallas, Peddles a Debunked Prison Fairy Tale

Every campaign eventually shows you what it has left in the tank. Whatley's tank, on the evidence of this week, runs on Trump and fear.

On Wednesday, September 9, the former RNC chair took the stage at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas and did the only thing a man down double digits can do: he swung. (cite index="2">Whatley described his Democratic rival, former Gov. Roy Cooper, as a dangerous “radical” and warned the American dream is “under assault today, thanks to the radical, extreme policies of Democrats like Roy Cooper.” (cite index="1">“Roy Cooper was the worst governor in the history of North Carolina,” he told the faithful.

Then came the number he keeps reaching for. (cite index="3">“Cooper set up a revolving door that put criminals back on the streets again and again and again. And he released 4200 hardened criminals from our prisons,” Whatley said. It is a hell of a line. It is also, per the people whose job is checking these things, garbage. (cite index="3">Cooper's campaign said independent fact-checkers have found those claims to be false.

Here are the receipts Whatley skips. (cite index="5">A North Carolina Superior Court judge ruled in June 2020 that civil rights groups were likely to win their COVID lawsuit and ordered the parties to reach a solution to keep prisoners safe, while the Cooper administration had argued in court it was already sufficiently protecting inmates. That is a governor complying with a court order, not a bleeding heart flinging cell doors open. And the super PAC ads carrying this narrative are dirtier still: (cite index="4">an ad from the Senate Leadership Fund falsely implies an accused murderer was one of the prisoners released under Cooper, when the suspect was actually released from a prison in South Carolina, not North Carolina. (cite index="5">Neither of the suspected killers featured in those ads was released from prison as part of the 2021 settlement.

The kicker, the part that curdles the whole act: (cite index="5">in 2020, while serving as chairman of the North Carolina GOP, Whatley criticized Cooper for not doing enough to protect prisoners and corrections officers from COVID-19. So he wanted them protected in 2020 and wants you terrified of their release in 2026. Pick a lane, chief.

Why the desperation? Look at the scoreboard. (cite index="6">A recent Elon University poll put Cooper at 53 percent and Whatley at 42, and Cooper has raised more than $35 million to Whatley's $16.1 million, less than half. A convention speech does not close that gap. A scare story that keeps failing its fact-checks does not either.

And about that “son of western North Carolina” he keeps invoking. (cite index="7">Whatley was born in Michigan and moved to the state only in his early high school years, yet frequently calls himself a “son” of the state who “grew up” there, and his campaign website says he was “raised in Blowing Rock” with no mention of Michigan. The self-styled outsider has the résumé of the ultimate insider: (cite index="8">a two-decade career as a corporate lobbyist, including work tied to Big Oil and Duke Energy, that a friendly super PAC ad has worked to paper over.

A man who fuzzes where he's from, buries what he did for a living, and recycles a prison tale the fact-checkers keep burning. That's the closing argument in Dallas. MUCK YOU, Mike from Michigan.