Brown recruited, managed campaign for extreme anti-abortion candidate in Texas

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown speaks with supporters after voting at Reno High School on June 14, 2022 in Reno. (Photo by Josh Edelson/Getty Images)

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Sam Brown, the Republican nominee challenging Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen this year, personally recruited and managed the campaign for a congressional candidate in Texas who believed abortion bans should have no exceptions, the Current has learned.

Campaign managers don’t automatically share the same political stances as the candidates they work for, but Brown’s professional and personal connections to an extreme anti-abortion congressional candidate are relevant as he faces criticism about inconsistent statements about his position on abortion rights.

In 2018, veteran and small business owner Sam Deen ran for Texas’s 5th Congressional District, coming in third out of eight in the Republican primary. Deen on social media said Brown, who he called a “dear friend and war hero,” personally asked him to run. Brown confirmed that story in his own social media posts, including in a video on Election Day where he encouraged voters in the district to head to the polls.

Although he did not center abortion as an issue, Deen described his political position as “100% Pro Life, no exceptions” on social media. He also called for the complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the privatization of Social Security, and said the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage had “no real effect other than political grandstanding.”

While campaigning, Deen repeatedly referred to Brown as his campaign manager, adding that the pair were West Point and Ranger School classmates. Many posts used an image of Deen and Brown, whose face is scarred from combat injuries received in 2008 in Afghanistan, and solicited donations, asking followers to “stand with us.”

Brown’s campaign did not respond to the Current ’s request for comment on his professional relationship with Deen.

The pair appear to have remained close even after Brown moved to Nevada in 2018 . Deen solicited donations for the Sam Brown for Nevada Exploratory Committee prior to Brown officially entering the 2022 Nevada Senate race against Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

In that primary race, Brown came in second to Adam Laxalt, the candidate supported by former President Donald Trump and the National Republican Senate Committee.

This year, as he challenges Rosen, Brown has the backing of Trump and the NRSC.

Brown, like many Republicans in Nevada, has attempted to sidestep questions about to what extent he supports abortion rights and leaned on the fact that Nevadans enshrined protections into state law through a ballot referendum in 1990.

On his campaign website , Brown describes himself as “pro-life” and states he “will oppose any bill that pushes for federal funding of abortion, late term abortions, or abortion without parental notification” and “will support federal judges who understand the importance of protecting life.”

Brown more recently has said he will not support a national abortion ban, but that position came after repeatedly dodging answering, saying he didn’t want to theorize on hypothetical legislation. In a 2022 debate with Laxalt he suggested he was open to it, saying he would “want to see that specific language.”

As previously reported by The Nevada Independent, when Brown was a Texas statehouse candidate in 2014, he expressed support for a proposed 20-week abortion ban there. Abortion was not settled law for that state at that time.

Abortion was also not a settled issue in Texas in 2018 when Brown managed Deen’s campaign.

As previously reported by the Current, Brown and his wife Amy quietly attended an anti-abortion gala in September 2023. He also previously held a position with the Nevada Faith and Freedom Coalition , the state arm of a national organization backing extreme abortion bans.

Amy Brown earlier this year spoke to NBC News about getting an abortion in 2008 . It was believed to be the first time she’d spoken publicly about her experience, but reporting by Jezebel this week uncovered that Amy Brown wrote about the experience on a church blog and spoke about it in a political ad in 2014.

In that video, for Red State Woman , Amy Brown praised the banning of “late-term abortions” — calling it “a step in the right direction” — and criticized Democrat Wendy Davis, then a Texas state senator running for governor against Republican Greg Abbott. Davis had gained national notoriety the year earlier after her hours-long filibuster to block a bill that would have severely restricted abortion.

After publication of this story, the Brown campaign sent the Current the following statement, which has previously been sent to other media outlets in response to questions about abortion rights: “Amy and I have spoken extensively about this topic and believe, first and foremost, that mothers who are facing an unplanned pregnancy deserve the utmost compassion and understanding. I am pro-life, with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. Like President Trump, I believe the issue is now correctly left at the state level and applaud his leadership.”

Abortion is expected to be a top issue for voters in Nevada and across the nation this year. The Nevada Senate race between Jacky Rosen and Sam Brown is expected to figure largely in determining which party will control the Senate.

Rosen this week participated in a press conference highlighting a conservative think tank’s plans for further restricting abortion and contraception access should Trump be reelected.

[ Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with a statement provided from Sam Brown.]

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