Cooper: Harris 'is the next president of the United States' if she wins North Carolina

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said on Sunday that if Vice President Harris wins North Carolina in the general election this November, she “is the next president of the United States.”

Cooper told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan that he was confident Harris could win over voters in North Carolina and praised the vice president for visiting his state so often while in office.

“There's no question about it,” Cooper said on “Face the Nation,” when asked whether “the average North Carolinian is open to persuasion or even watching what happens on that debate stage this week.”

“It's close here in North Carolina. It always is. This was Biden-Harris's closest loss in 2020, only 1.3 percent,” Cooper continued. “So the fact that Kamala Harris, as Vice President of the United States, has been to North Carolina 17 times shows that she cares about our state. She knows that we are in play.”

“And she knows that if she wins North Carolina, she is the next President of the United States because Trump has no other pathway,” he added, referring to the former president and GOP nominee.

Trump won North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes in the 2020 election, besting President Biden by fewer than 100,000 votes, amounting to a 1.3 percentage-point difference. Since 1980, the state has only voted for a Democrat once – in 2008, when former President Obama eked out a narrow win over the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), 49.7 percent to 49.4 percent.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report, less than two weeks ago, shifted the state toward Harris, moving it from “lean Republican” to “toss up.”

Trump is still leading Harris in the state, however, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s state polling average, which puts Trump 0.3 percentage points ahead of Harris, 48.6 percent to 48.3 percent.

Cooper, who was considered a possible contender for the Democratic VP spot, said once North Carolinians start learning more about the Harris campaign and her plan to lower costs and support the middle class, they will see polling improve in the state.

"When we continue to get this information out to the American public, and to people here in North Carolina, that Kamala Harris has an economic plan that's going to help lower the cost for everyday people, that's going to help families thrive, that is going to protect women's reproductive freedom. I think at the end of the day, that's going to be what works here," Cooper said.