RALEIGH (AP) — Democrats in Washington believed early in the midterm campaign cycle that former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper would be their biggest recruiting win as they tried to forge a once-unthinkable path to a Senate majority.

His state’s voters ratified their confidence Tuesday, delivering Cooper his seventh statewide electoral victory, this time over President Donald Trump’s handpicked Republican candidate Michael Whatley, to flip a key seat in the national battle for Senate control.