Michael Whatley was born and raised in Watauga County and most recently served as chair of the Republican National Committee. Before that, he was the chair of the North Carolina Republican Party. Whatley also worked as chief of staff for Senator Elizabeth Dole and served as deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Energy Department under President George W. Bush.
Candidate Q&A
NC Health News reached out to Whatley’s campaign and spokesperson by phone and email and left several messages that were not returned. To give readers information, we combed the internet and social media for statements by Whatley and material from his campaign website that could address the themes in our questions.
What do you see as the biggest financial and administrative challenge to implementing the work requirements for Medicaid that were included in the One Big Beautiful Bill?
Whatley has always supported the One Big Beautiful Bill, including the work requirements for Medicaid recipients. Last year, a spokesperson for Whatley told WRAL-TV that, “Medicaid funding in the OBBB cuts illegal aliens, people fraudulently double-dipping in multiple states, and able-bodied adults between the ages of 19-64 who don’t want to look for a job.”
Whatley told Punchbowl News that adding work requirements to Medicaid is widely supported in North Carolina and “and I don’t see that those provisions are going to cause a political backlash.”
What would be your plan for ensuring the future security/strength of Social Security and Medicare?
“My top priority for Social Security will always be to preserve and protect [it] for North Carolina’s seniors. I will not support any efforts that take away anything from what is owed to the good people who have paid into this program. Congress must work in a bipartisan way to ensure the system’s solvency. If Congress gets to work now, we can have a serious conversation on strengthening the program without hurting those who rely on it,” Whatley said in a Q&A with AARP.
When asked about Medicare, he said: “I am strongly committed to protecting and strengthening Medicare for current and future beneficiaries. Congress must work in a bipartisan way to ensure its solvency. Medicare lost $56.7 billion in fiscal year 2025, including to fraud, waste and abuse. Every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar stolen from seniors and limits their access to quality care. For this reason, I support new guidelines to eliminate illegal aliens from receiving your Medicare dollars and to stop people from fraudulently filing claims in multiple states.”
What would you support in Congress as a plan to help control health care/ pharmaceutical costs?
Whatley said he supports TrumpRX and reinstating Most Favored Nation Status, which he said “have helped Americans to get their prescription drugs at the lowest possible cost.”
What steps would you take to improve access to health care in rural areas? How do we make the Rural Health Transformation Program successful in North Carolina?
“Despite the challenges in rural health care, [there was opposition] to the Working Families Tax Cuts legislation last year which included $50 billion to improve rural health care. I fully support these critical provisions,” Whatley said during a Q&A with AARP. “I will advocate for increasing access to home- and community-based services, particularly in rural areas where provider shortages create additional barriers. Leveraging telehealth, remote patient monitoring technologies and flexible service delivery models can further help older adults have access to the care they need and maintain their independence.”
The rollout of AI is moving fast, including in health care, and leaders in that space are calling for things to slow down. What federal moves should be taken to regulate it, if at all?
“We need to win the AI race,” Whatley said in an interview aired on C-Span. “We cannot allow China or India or anybody else to beat us when it comes to AI development and what we are doing there. It’s a national security issue. It’s an economic security issue.”
Where do you stand on federal vaccine policy? What should be done to prevent future disease outbreaks?
Whatley was the GOP chair in North Carolina during the COVID-19 pandemic and encouraged people to get the vaccine, while calling it a personal choice.
“Look, I’m going to get the shot as soon as I’m eligible,” he told ABC11. “I encourage everybody else to get the shot as soon as they’re eligible. If anybody has any concerns about the safety or efficacy of the shots, they should talk to their doctors about it, but this is certainly a personal choice and one between any individuals and their doctors.”
“In terms of the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, that’s absolutely not political,” Whatley said. “That’s going to be based on science.”
We’ve had some high-profile food contamination outbreaks, yet the federal government is pulling back on regulation of food, air and water. What level of federal regulation do you support and why?
Whatley lobbied for oil company interests in D.C. for over a decade. He co-founded Consumer Energy Alliance, an oil-backed advocacy group, which has pushed back on EPA air quality regulations. He supports offshore drilling in the Atlantic.
Whatley’s campaign website lists his first priority as “Enact the Trump Agenda in the U.S. Senate.” Trump’s administration has rolled back many environmental protection regulations.
PFAS contamination is a nationwide issue; how do you address it while balancing public safety and business interests?
WUNC asked Whatley’s campaign about PFAS contamination and a donation to his campaign by Chemours, the company responsible for allowing the chemical into the water in eastern North Carolina. Whatley did not respond.
The building and placement of data centers have become a big issue, particularly in many rural communities. What should be the federal government’s role, if any, in how these are developed?
“The companies that are going to develop the data centers need to work with the community to ensure that the infrastructure is in place to be able to sustain it,” Whatley said in an interview aired on C-Span. “If a community says that this is not right for us, then build it somewhere else.”
Whatley said it makes sense to have tax breaks for data centers but not subsidies, the Charlotte Observer reported. He believes data centers should “pay their own way” and that people should “decide what gets built in their communities,” campaign spokesman DJ Griffin told the Observer.
“That means Big Tech builds or buys every megawatt it needs and covers every dime of the grid upgrades to deliver it, with zero costs shifted onto residential ratepayers. It means no special subsidies and no sweetheart deals cut over the heads of taxpayers,” Griffin said.
Whatley told Fox News in August that “you’ve got to make absolutely sure that there’s not going to be a disparate impact on the community when it comes to water, when it comes to traffic, when it comes to electricity.”
He added that the opposition to data centers is “not organic.” “This is being ginned up. The same way we saw opposition to energy projects around the country.”
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