PERSON: Roy Cooper

U.S. State Government of North Carolina

Governor

Roy Asberry Cooper III (/ˈkʊpər/ KUUP-ər; born June 13, 1957) is an American attorney and politician serving since 2017 as the 75th governor of North Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 50th attorney general of North Carolina from 2001 to 2017, and in the North Carolina General Assembly, in both the House, from 1987 to 1991, and the Senate, from 1991 to 2001.

Cooper graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1979. He began his career as a lawyer and in 1986 was elected to represent the 72nd district in the North Carolina House of Representatives. In 1991, he was appointed a member of the North Carolina Senate, a position he held until 2001. He was elected North Carolina Attorney General in 2000 and reelected in 2004, 2008, and 2012, serving just under 16 years, the second-longest tenure for an attorney general in the state’s history.

Cooper defeated Republican incumbent Pat McCrory for the governorship in a close race in the 2016 election. This election made Cooper the first challenger to defeat a sitting governor in the state’s history. Cooper was reelected in 2020 against the Republican nominee, Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest. The Republican-dominated legislature passed bills in a special session to reduce the power of the governor’s office before he took office, but Cooper continued to emphasize increases in education and healthcare funding throughout his tenure, culminating in successful negotiations of statewide Medicaid expansion.

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