Cooper because he brings NC’s electoral votes and helps keep a Trumpy person out of the governor’s mansion. His political positions are bleh, but Harris is young and should something happen to her Cooper is a decent human and would make a decent president.
Cooper also has experience dealing with gerrymandered bad-faith Republican supermajority, so I don’t think he’ll be interested in playing the compromise game.
Yup, I have friends all over the state and just the occasional glance over the years at what Republicans have pulled in the state has been horrifying.
A side note not related to gerrymandering - I’ve seen it thrown around that Cooper can’t do it because a quirk of NC law says the Lt. Governor becomes Acting Governor anytime the sitting Governor is out of state and the current Lt. Governor is Mark “Some People Need Killing” Robinson, but I honestly think giving him a longer leash to let more people hear him bark nonsense and hate will hurt Robinson’s chances of becoming governor. Sunshine is the best medicine and all of that (to the extent that it’s not free media advertising as it was with Trump). It’s kind of a headscratcher that Robinson was elected as Lt. Governor to begin with, the dude is a walking meme/idiot and the voters really dropped the ball on that one.