Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Michael Whatley said this week that he hopes the GOP will rally behind the president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, should she decide to run for North Carolina’s vacant Senate seat next year.
“What I will say is this: If Lara Trump is going to be interested, then she is certainly going to have the entire Republican universe — myself included — that are going to coalesce behind her,” Whatley said in a Monday interview with the Washington Examiner published on Wednesday. “And if not, we’ll work with the president, and we’ll figure out who the best candidate is to be able to win there.”
Whatley, himself, has been floated as a possible contender for the seat after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) abruptly announced he would run for a third term after a falling out with President Trump. Whatley was chairman of the North Carolina GOP for five years before then-GOP nominee Trump recommended that he move to the national role in 2024 ahead of the presidential election.
The Hill confirmed in June that Lara Trump, who is married to the president’s third oldest child, businessman Eric Trump, is considering a Senate run in her home state, after Tillis announced he would not seek reelection while opposing the passage of President Trump’s massive tax and spending bill.
Lara Trump, who previously mulled a Tar Heel State campaign after the retirement of former Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) in 2020, recently told Fox News Radio that she is again considering a run in her home state.
“Look, I’m considering it,” the North Carolina State University grad said in a June 30 radio interview. “I think that one thing that I think all of us in the Trump family have learned is that it is so incredible to be able to impact the lives of people across this country.”
“No one knows that more so than my father-in-law,” she added.
She previously served as co-chair of the RNC alongside Whatley, but resigned in December 2024 amid speculation she would fill former Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) seat after he was nominated to serve as secretary of state.
Multiple attempts by The Hill to reach Lara Trump for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.
Whatley told The Examiner that he doesn’t know if Lara Trump, who is currently a Fox News host and runs an athletic clothing line, will make a run for the Senate seat, but he said he trusts the president’s instincts on who will be best suited for the role.
“I’ve been the chair down there for five years; I’ve worked with the president through three different presidential election cycles,” Whatley said. “We know how to win in North Carolina, and I feel very confident that we’re going to be able to hold that seat.”
Tillis’s retirement prompted elections handicappers to reclassify the seat as a “toss-up” race in the midterm cycle.
President Trump, who had threatened to support a primary challenger against Tillis, called the Republican lawmaker’s decision to retire from the Senate at the end of his second term “great news.”
“Numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the Primary against ‘Senator Thom’ Tillis,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post June 28 shortly after Tillis’s announcement. “I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks, looking for someone who will properly represent the Great People of North Carolina and, so importantly, the United States of America.”
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