North Carolina's Democratic Senate nominee Roy Cooper declined on camera to sign a moderate Democrat pledge rejecting socialist positions, and argued his party should welcome candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.
Video footage obtained by Fox News Digital shows Cooper, the former two-term governor, brushing aside the Promise to America, a document drafted by moderate Democrats that repudiates socialist policy stances. Asked directly whether he would sign it, Cooper's answer was blunt: "I don't see any need to."
He went further. Cooper said the Democratic Party "needs a wide spectrum" of candidates, including those aligned with the DSA, a group whose published platform calls for abolishing the U.S. Senate, establishing public ownership of corporations, and dismantling Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Cooper cast the question not as ideological but as strategic. In the footage, he framed unity with the party's far-left wing as essential to fighting what he called "autocracy."
"Particularly now when we're in such difficult straits, and we're in a foxhole right now. We've all got to be together to take our government back."
He added a warning for anyone thinking about drawing lines within the party:
"We could fall to the autocracy anytime we don't stick together. So, I don't see the need signing something."
That language is worth reading twice. Cooper is not merely tolerating DSA-aligned Democrats. He is making the affirmative case that rejecting them, even symbolically, through a pledge, would weaken the party. For a candidate who has built his brand on moderation and bipartisan deal-making, the remarks cut directly against that image.
Cooper served as North Carolina's governor from 2017 to 2025, working with a Republican-controlled state legislature. His campaign has leaned into that record. In a statement to Fox News Digital, his team said:
"The only pledge Roy makes is to the people of North Carolina. Roy is not a socialist, and he will work with anyone, including Republicans, as he has done his entire career to lower costs for hardworking families and fight for North Carolina."
But the campaign declined to say whether Cooper's platform is at odds with the DSA's stated goals, saying only that "his commitments are reserved for his constituents."
The Democratic Socialists of America are not a fringe campus club. Their platform, published on their website, envisions a country where housing, food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation are stripped from the private market and run as public utilities. Debt would be eliminated. Health insurance would be unnecessary. Retirement would be publicly funded.
The DSA's own program puts it plainly:
"You have no debt. You don't need health insurance. You don't pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right. Your retirement is publicly funded. Food, education, energy, medicine and transportation aren't for-profit businesses; they are common goods and utilities."
Beyond economics, the organization advocates abolishing the U.S. Senate itself, the very institution Cooper is running to join. It also calls for abolishing ICE, the federal agency responsible for enforcing immigration law inside the country. These are not mainstream policy tweaks. They represent a wholesale rejection of constitutional governance and market economics.
Cooper's refusal to sign the Promise to America fits a broader pattern. Nearly two hundred House Democrats previously voted against a resolution condemning socialism, a move that raised the same question Cooper's video raises now: where exactly does the Democratic Party draw its ideological boundary?
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, offered his own read on the dynamic at an energy summit co-hosted by Club for Growth and Arnold Ventures. Cruz argued that Democrats who might privately prefer a centrist path are frozen in place by fear of their progressive base.
"That dynamic is dangerous right now because they are terrified of the extreme left. Finding a middle ground on ideological issues right now is... the prospects for success, particularly between now and election day, are not high."
Cruz also claimed that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer "is truly terrified right now", a characterization that, if accurate, would explain why national Democratic leadership has not pressured candidates like Cooper to distance themselves from the DSA wing.
That reluctance has not gone unnoticed on the right. Speaker Mike Johnson recently seized on DSA primary victories to argue that Democrats have no real leader willing to push back against the party's socialist drift. Cooper's video only reinforces that framing.
Cooper has faced questions about his ideological leanings before. In a prior interview with The New York Times, he was asked directly whether he was a communist. His response: "For the record, no."
He followed up with a pitch aimed squarely at moderate voters:
"I have a record of working across the aisle. The people of North Carolina know that I can be a senator that puts them first. Before power, before party, before politics. I feel confident that, at the end of the day, they'll send me to Washington."
The tension between those words and the video footage is plain. Cooper tells The New York Times he puts people "before party." He tells the camera he thinks the party needs to stick together with its socialist-aligned members to avoid losing power. Both statements cannot comfortably coexist. One is aimed at general election voters. The other appears aimed at the activist base that drives Democratic primaries.
North Carolina is historically Republican-leaning, and the seat Cooper is chasing opens because Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is retiring. Cooper will face Michael Whatley, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, in the November 3 general election. In that kind of race, a candidate's refusal to draw a clear line against abolishing the Senate, nationalizing industries, and dismantling immigration enforcement is not a minor footnote.
Internal Democratic divisions have grown sharper in recent months. Leaked messages sparked calls to oust Sen. John Fetterman after he broke with the party on key issues, a reminder that Democrats who step out of ideological lockstep face real consequences from within their own ranks. Cooper appears to have drawn the opposite lesson: stay inside the tent, no matter how far left it stretches.
And that calculation has downstream effects beyond one Senate race. When Democratic candidates in competitive states refuse even to symbolically reject the DSA platform, it signals to socialist-aligned organizers that the party's center will not resist them. Only two House moderates broke ranks the last time Democrats had a chance to vote against socialism on the record. Cooper's refusal to sign a simple pledge suggests the Senate side is no different.
Cooper's campaign says he is not a socialist. His record as governor includes working with Republicans. But when handed a document that simply asks him to reject socialist positions, positions that include abolishing the chamber he wants to join, he said no. And he explained that no by arguing his party cannot afford to alienate the people who hold those positions.
Voters in a state where immigration enforcement and constitutional governance are not abstract concepts deserve to know which Roy Cooper would show up in Washington, the bipartisan dealmaker from the Times interview, or the coalition builder who thinks the DSA belongs in the foxhole with him.
When a candidate refuses to say what he's against, voters are entitled to wonder what he's actually for.
