Brian Mills Turner

Current office and 2026 campaign

Brian Turner is the Democratic member of the North Carolina House of Representatives for District 116 in Buncombe County, and is running for re-election on November 3, 2026 ¹². He filed on December 1, 2025 and is the only candidate who filed for the seat, drawing neither a primary nor a general-election opponent ². The General Assembly lists him as serving his fifth term in the House, with an occupation of real estate ¹.

In a press release issued at filing, Turner said: "It's been an honor to serve the people of Asheville and advocate for Western North Carolina." He described disaster aid as his central focus: "Since Hurricane Helene struck, delivering that aid has been the number one priority" ³.

Background and education

Turner was born and raised in Asheville ³⁴. The North Carolina House Democratic Caucus states that he earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Northwestern University in 1996 and an MBA from Wake Forest University in 2010 ⁴.

Career

Per his campaign biography, Turner worked as a sewing machine operator at Mills Manufacturing, "the parachute manufacturing business started by his grandfather in the 1930's," and after college as a television producer for MTV, producing live shows including the Super Bowl halftime show and the Video Music Awards. He returned to North Carolina in 2004 to serve on the leadership team of the family business, and in 2012 joined UNC Asheville as Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations, later being promoted to Assistant Vice Chancellor ⁵. The caucus biography describes the same sequence of roles ⁴. Asheville reporting from 2014 noted that he resigned his vice chancellor post at UNC Asheville to run for the legislature ⁶. The General Assembly lists his current occupation as real estate ¹.

Office history

Turner was first elected in 2014, defeating two-term Republican incumbent Tim Moffitt 13,298 to 12,321 in certified returns ⁷. He served four consecutive terms from 2015 to 2023 ⁴. He was not a candidate for District 116 in 2022; Democrat Caleb Rudow won the seat that year with 25,161 votes to Republican Mollie Rose's 15,185 ⁸. After the district was redrawn, Turner ran again in 2024 and was elected without opposition, receiving 42,815 votes ⁴⁹. He returned to the House for the 2025-2026 session ¹.

Legislative record and accomplishments

In the 2025-2026 session Turner sits on the House committees on Alcoholic Beverage Control; Appropriations; Appropriations, Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources; Emergency Management and Disaster Recovery; Higher Education; and Wildlife Resources, and on the House Select Committee on Helene Recovery and the House Select Committee on Property Tax Reduction and Reform. The General Assembly lists him as a member, not a chair or vice chair, of each ¹⁰.

He is a primary sponsor of 18 bills filed in the 2025-2026 session ¹¹. Among them, House Bill 747, "2026 Wildlife Resources Changes," on which he was one of four primary sponsors, was ratified on July 2, 2026, signed by the governor on July 7, 2026, and chaptered as Session Law 2026-43 on July 8, 2026 ¹². Other bills he introduced as a primary sponsor include district-specific measures - House Bill 194 on Asheville school calendar flexibility, House Bill 228 providing City of Asheville funds for a study, and House Bill 238 reimbursing Buncombe County for the cost of a study - along with House Bill 599 (N.C. Forest Service pay increase), House Bill 668 (NC Working Families Economic Relief Act), House Bill 798 (expanding access to cold weather shelters) and House Bill 863 (Disaster Recovery Act of 2025 - Part 1(b)) ¹¹.

The House Democratic Caucus credits Turner with a key role in establishing Pisgah View State Park - which the state describes as located in Buncombe County 18 miles southwest of downtown Asheville - and with advocating for raising North Carolina's minimum marriage age and for survivors of child sexual assault ⁴¹³. His campaign biography states that he "stood with the LGBTQ+ communities in voting against HB2, the infamous bathroom bill, and the flawed compromise bill HB 142," and that "since his first campaign, Brian Turner has not accepted a single PAC check and has returned tens of thousands of dollars in special interest and corporate PAC money" ⁵. Both the caucus page and his campaign state that he has been honored three times by the NC League of Conservation Voters for his work on environmental issues and received the Jobs Champion recognition from the NC Chamber of Commerce ⁴⁵.

Documented disputes and controversies

Turner's first campaign produced a formal ethics dispute with the incumbent he was challenging. On February 24, 2014, Turner and Rep. Tim Moffitt met at a restaurant in Biltmore Park in a meeting brokered by Republican Buncombe County Commissioner David King. Turner said publicly, including in a March 2014 radio interview, that Moffitt asked him to withdraw from the race and then suggested he "do something productive like run UNC TV" ⁶. Turner filed a complaint with the State Ethics Commission in March 2014 and a complaint with the State Board of Elections on March 13, 2014 ⁶¹⁴.

Moffitt denied the allegations and asked the Board of Elections to dismiss the complaint; according to the News & Observer's account, he said he had merely suggested Turner would make a good candidate to head UNC-TV given his experience as an MTV producer and as a UNC Asheville vice chancellor ¹⁴. The Asheville Citizen-Times quoted Moffitt saying, "I'm effective and I get things done, but I am not that good. I could probably make him queen of Spain before I could make him president of UNC-TV" ⁶. King, who was present at the meeting, provided a sworn statement backing Moffitt ¹⁴. Turner responded on April 2, 2014 that he had sent the Board of Elections a recording of a March 6 telephone conversation with King as evidence that "multiple statements given under oath are patently false and misleading," and asked the board to continue its investigation ¹⁴.

Both complaints were dismissed. The State Ethics Commission dismissed Turner's complaint in May 2014 for lack of merit, and the State Board of Elections also dismissed it, finding no evidence that Moffitt violated any laws or acted improperly ¹⁵. Turner defeated Moffitt in the November 2014 general election ⁷.

Family

The General Assembly lists Turner's legislative assistant as Hope T. Turner ¹. His campaign biography identifies Hope as his wife and states that she "is a member of the NC Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, has a Masters in Sign Language Education from Gallaudet, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Deaf Studies at Lamar University," and describes her as "the first Deaf staffer at the NCGA" ⁵.

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