Donald Mitchell Brown JR

Current office and 2026 campaign

Donald Mitchell "Don" Brown Jr. is a Republican attorney from Union County, North Carolina, who ran in the March 3, 2026 primary for the U.S. Senate seat held by Thom Tillis, who announced his retirement in June 2025 ¹². Brown filed his candidacy with the State Board of Elections on December 1, 2025 and appeared on the ballot as "Donald M. (Don) Brown" ¹. He is registered with the Federal Election Commission as candidate S6NC00373 ⁶.

Brown finished second in a seven-candidate Republican field, receiving 97,891 votes (15.60 percent) to Michael Whatley's 405,140 votes (64.57 percent), according to the State Board of Elections' official precinct-level results ³. He did not advance to the November 3, 2026 general election.

Brown told WCTI he was running "because North Carolinians deserve a constitutional conservative who will fight - not just talk - when our freedoms are threatened," and listed the national debt, border security, "ending political prosecutions and weaponization of government," and "protecting medical freedom" among his priorities; WCTI notes that its candidate answers come from the candidate and have not been fact-checked ². He told WITN in December 2025 that federal spending prompted him to enter the race: "We have 3.2 million federal employees, over 400 agencies, and yet the national debt explodes at $37,000 per second" ⁵.

On disaster recovery, NC Newsline reported in February 2026 that Brown's "proposed solution is a Hurricane Helene trust fund: millions of dollars invested in local banks, which Christian charities would disburse in partnership with local governments," quoting him as saying, "We're going to get FEMA out of the way - FEMA should be abolished" ⁴. NC Newsline also reported that Brown raised $146,000 in 2025, compared with $5.2 million for Whatley ⁴.

Background and education

Brown was born in Plymouth, North Carolina ²⁵. The North Carolina voter registration file lists his year of birth as 1960 and shows him registered as a Republican in Union County ⁷. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and of the Campbell University School of Law, and holds a non-resident certificate in international law from the United States Naval War College ².

Career

Brown is a former U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps officer who served at the Pentagon and a former Special Assistant United States Attorney ²⁵. He is the managing attorney of Brown & Associates, PLLC, and his campaign biography says he has handled complex litigation across North and South Carolina ²⁸. NC Newsline described him as "a former U.S. Navy JAG officer turned author and conservative media personality" and reported that he "is perhaps best known for representing U.S. Army Lt. Clint Lorance - convicted for ordering the killing of two Afghan men - and helping to secure a pardon from Trump" ⁴.

His campaign site describes him as a Publishers Weekly national best-selling author of 16 books, four of which achieved national bestseller status ⁸. Among them is the 2015 military expose "Call Sign Extortion 17: The Shootdown of SEAL Team Six," which his campaign says served as a basis for the 2021 docu-drama "Fallen Angel: Extortion 17" ⁸.

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