After much anticipation by the media, Brown announced that he would run for U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire. Born at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, to parents who lived near downtown Portsmouth, Brown then spent his early childhood in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and later in Wakefield, Massachusetts following his parents' divorce. He has also been a taxpayer and owned a home in Rye, New Hampshire for more than two decades. In December 2013, he sold his primary home in Massachusetts and expressed to the Rye town clerk "his intention to establish residency and register to vote".