Mike Brown announced Tuesday evening he would not run again to chair the Kansas Republican Party.
Claiming a series of accomplishments, Brown said he would not run for reelection as chair when the party holds its annual meeting March 1 in Goodland.
“This decision allows me to focus on my family and my personal pursuits while continuing to champion the conservative movement we’ve built together,” he said.
“I am deeply grateful for this journey and for the unwavering support of so many incredible patriots,” he said.
“The future is bright if the current course is continued, and I look forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with you in the good fights to come.”
He added, “This remains forever true: Bold, conservative Republican leadership wins.”
Brown, who had developed a national and statewide reputation for stirring distrust of elections, had been challenged for party chair by Danedri Herbert, a longtime Republican who is now the spokesperson for Attorney General Kris Kobach.
Herbert could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.
Brown’s annoucement was first reported on Facebook by Johnson County Commissioner Michael Ashcraft where there was a mix of support and others glad to see him leave.
Brown was elected by two votes in 2023 when he defeated longtime Republican activist Helen Van Etten.
Brown ran a campaign for chair challenging the state Republican Party’s leadership, blaming them for losing the last two governor’s races to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and the 3rd District Congressional seat to Democrat Sharice Davids.
Kelly didn’t run in 2024 but Davids did and won a fourth term in Congress. Republicans, however, expanded their supermajorities in the House and Senate.
Brown had been critical of former Republican Party leaders, calling former party chair Mike Kuckelman “weak” and described the party leadership as timid.
Kuckelman had become a frequent critic of Brown’s leadership of the party on social media. The relationship soured to a point where Brown told Kuckelman to avoid him.
The relationship appeared to thaw recently when Brown announced in his weekly newsletter that he was working to patch up his relationship with Kuckelman, starting with a meeting over coffee.
Kuckelman acknowledged the meeting, which he said was arranged by labor lawyer Keith Mark. But he cautioned about the conclusions that could be reached from the meeting.
“To the extent Mike Brown implied that I am somehow supportive of him, he grossly misrepresented our discussion,” Kuckelman said at the time.
“To be clear: I am not a supporter of Mike Brown and claims/insinuations representing otherwise are false,” he wrote.
Kuckelman said he wasn’t surprised that Brown decided not to run again as Herbert’s candidacy gained traction.
“It’s time for new leadership that can unify our party. Brown’s term was mired in division and controversy,” Kuckelman said in a text.
“I’m hopeful that we can put all of the division behind us and that Republicans will coalesce behind Danedri Herbert and unify our Party as we go into the 2026 cycle.
“My hope is that Danedri will make clear that under her leadership all Republicans are welcome in our big tent Republican Party,” he wrote.
As chair, Brown had become known for the party’s weekly newsletter known as the “Friday File” where he once ruminated about dismantling the “deep state,” where he said agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and the FBI had become “self-perpetuating entities that undermine democracy and public trust.”
“The deep state represents a shadow government that operates beyond the control of voters and it’s high time we reclaim the democratic accountability that has been eroded,” Brown wrote in that Sept. 27 newsletter.
“The struggle is deep state isn’t a monolithic entity operating in secret. In reality, it is a tantacled (sp)beast with a specific gravity. Within layers of classic bureaucracy and institutional inertia that often resist change, it always fights outsiders attempting to challenge the status quo,” Brown wrote.
He added, “The challengers are deemed troublemakers and the mainstream media – the DNC’s communications department, happily begins the smear campaign never pausing to ask the next set of important questions.
He said, “This sycophant and derelict behavior begs a Congressional review of the MSM’s vast protections under the U.S. Constitution.”
A week later, Brown defended the comments after he had been criticized in legacy media outlets. He said he was misunderstood.
“When reporting factual news, I simply stated that the press should always enjoy the First Amendment. And when they are printing stated opinion, they should also enjoy the benefits of 1A,” he wrote in early October.
“However, when they print opinion as news in a thinly veiled attempt to bend the curve of public opinion then and there they have crossed a line beyond the protections of the First Amendment,” he wrote.
He also ran into turbulence during his term, notably over a proposed party rules change removing top elected officials and groups representing women, Hispanics, African Americans and young adults from key policy committees.
Brown distanced himself from the proposal, although his critics blamed him for engineering the idea, which has never been acted on.
Brown rose to party chair after an unsuccessful primary challenge against Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab in the summer of 2022.
Labeled as an “election denier” on a national level, Brown ran his campaign for secretary of state by questioning Kansas elections without any hard or specific evidence of voter fraud in Kansas.
The former Johnson County commissioner had promised to eliminate mail ballot drop boxes and return to prosecuting voter fraud similar to Kobach when he was secretary of state.
When he ran for secretary of state, Brown joined a national coalition of like-minded secretary of state candidates allied with former President Donald Trump who tried to discredit the results of the 2020 election.
Endorsed at one point by 1970s rocker Ted Nugent, Brown lost his race to Schwab by about 46,000 votes before turning his attention to running for party chair.
