Republican U.S. Senate candidate Don Brown is criticizing the Republican National Committee's decision to support former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley's campaign.
The state and national GOP typically stay neutral in a competitive primary, but the RNC will now put its funding and resources behind Whatley's campaign.
Brown says national party leaders shouldn't pick the nominee to face former Gov. Roy Cooper in November 2026 without a contested primary.
"Some of the inside Republicans at the very top of the party know that if we play on an even keel, and I'm debating Whatley, I'm going to take him out real fast," Brown told WUNC. "So they're getting a little slip-shoddy with the rules here. I'm proud to be Republican, but you got a few people that don't think we ought to have a primary. This primary should be left up to the good Republicans in North Carolina."
RNC rules require the party to stay neutral in competitive primaries where there's no incumbent. But there's an exception to the rule: The party can take sides if all three of a state's members of the RNC agree to the move. N.C. Republican Party Chairman Jason Simmons (who served as the NCGOP's executive director when Whatley was its chair) told NBC that he approved the Whatley support along with RNC committee representatives Ed Broyhill and Kyshia Brassington.
A spokesman for Simmons did not respond to an inquiry from WUNC, but Simmons told NBC that “because Michael Whatley is the Trump-endorsed candidate, we wanted to go ahead and do this."
Trump endorsed Whatley on social media before his campaign formally launched, saying he "would make an unbelievable senator from North Carolina."
Brown is the only other Republican currently in the Senate race to replace Thom Tillis after other candidates dropped out. Brown also criticized Whatley's decision to remain in the role of RNC chair for several weeks following his campaign launch.
"Whatley stuck around for almost a month, I assume drawing a salary from the RNC, using his position as RNC chair to push his candidacy," Brown said.
Brown launched his campaign in the spring, when Tillis was still expected to seek re-election. He says he decided to stay in the race because he sees little difference between Whatley and Tillis.
"If Lara Trump had jumped in the race, I would have stepped out, saluted, and in some ways, been relieved," Brown said.
Who is Don Brown?
Brown is a former Navy JAG officer and former federal prosecutor. He represented several people who were pardoned by Trump for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Brown refers to them as "political prisoners."
He's also an author who's made numerous appearances on conservative cable news shows.
While Trump's endorsement has prompted most political observers to predict Whatley will easily win the primary, Brown is traveling across the state and meeting with voters. He says he's been to 50 of the state's 100 counties so far.
His campaign reported raising about $70,000 by the end of June, FEC records show. That's far less than what Whatley is expected to raise, but it's higher than most statewide candidates who haven't held elected office before.
"I'm not a wealthy guy but most North Carolinians are not either," he said. "So we're going to run the best ground game this state has ever seen, and we're going to pull this thing off."
Asked about his policy differences with Whatley, Brown says he's opposed to vaccine mandates. He wants to abolish FEMA and replace it with "a consolidated fighting area of the military called National Disaster Relief Command," responding to disasters under military leadership "with Chinook helicopters and Black Hawks ready to go."
Brown is critical of Whatley's role in Helene recovery, pointing to Trump's appointment of the then-RNC chairman as a "recovery czar" for western North Carolina.
"I've been in those western counties, we're making a focus to be there, and neither Whatley nor Cooper are popular at all up there," Brown said. Whatley has defended the Trump administration's recovery efforts, saying funding sped up after he took office.
Both candidates have focused in recent days on the killing of Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train. Whatley has appeared on TV news claiming that the suspect "was let out on the revolving door of the Democrat soft-on-crime policies led by Governor Roy Cooper."
Brown has a similar critique of Democrats, but he is also calling on Trump to send National Guard troops to Charlotte. "There should be a National Guard soldier on every train," he said.
