Brandon Herrera

Brandon Joseph Herrera (born November20, 1995), also known as The AK Guy, is an American YouTuber, firearms manufacturer, and political candidate. He gained prominence through his YouTube channel, launched in 2014, which features firearms testing, historical weapon demonstrations, and commentary on gun policy and politics. Herrera is a member of the Republican Party.

In 2024, Herrera ran to represent Texas's 23rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, challenging incumbent Tony Gonzales in the Republican primary. He lost by approximately 1percentage point in a runoff. He ran again for the seat in 2026, forcing a runoff and becoming the nominee after Gonzales withdrew his candidacy.

Politically, Herrera identifies as libertarian-leaning and is associated with right-wing populist figures, emphasizing gun rights, limited government, and support for President Donald Trump.

Early life Brandon Herrera was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to a family originating from Texas. Herrera attended Campbell University, where he studied pre-law, before dropping out to run his firearms manufacturing business. Subjects of his videos include tests of antique and military weapons, such as the AK-47 and RPG-7; discussions about gun laws and politics; and a series recreating the assassinations of public figures, including John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr and Abraham Lincoln.

In 2024, Herrera released a rifle he and his team engineered called the AK-50, an AK-47 pattern rifle chambered in .50 BMG in order to blend the durability and power of the two separately. The gun was later added to the video game Escape from Tarkov.

In the aftermath of the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting, an alleged manifesto by the perpetrator referenced Herrera, stating the two had met at SHOT Show. Herrera harshly condemned the shooting and perpetrator, stating that he and his friends who attended SHOT show have "zero recollection of ever meeting this creep." The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the organizers of SHOT show, released a statement in which they detailed there is no record or evidence the shooter ever attended any year of the event.

Politics On March 19, 2024, Herrera spoke outside of the Colorado State Capitol to around 400 people and later testified inside to the Colorado Legislature against a proposed assault weapons ban.

On July 7, 2025, Herrera appeared on Fox News to discuss the impact and effects of the July 2025 Central Texas floods. Herrera has described himself as libertarian-leaning, often emphasizing gun rights and limited government, but has generally aligned himself with right-wing populists such as Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz. He also has appealed to anti-establishment voters in the primaries. Herrera is also a staunch supporter of US President Donald Trump, having worked on the 2016 Trump campaign.

2024 congressional election

In August 2023, Herrera, a Republican, announced he would run for the U.S. House to represent Texas's 23rd congressional district in 2024, citing a frustration in incumbent Tony Gonzales' votes and gun policy. Herrera called for a recount, saying, "I don't expect the results to change, but I feel I owe it to my volunteers, voters, and supporters to leave no stone unturned."

Several political action committees from outside of Texas donated millions of dollars to Gonzales' campaign against Herrera. The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC ran an ad campaign accusing Herrera of joking about veteran suicide and having "glorified Nazis and mocked the Holocaust" in his YouTube videos. A Politico article cited this ad campaign as an example of AIPAC strategically attacking certain candidates while supporting its endorsed ones, without mentioning Israel. After the primary, U.S. Term Limits, a congressional term limits advocacy group, tapped Herrera to be their Texas chair. Herrera criticized AIPAC after it spent over US$1 million against him, calling it "Israel first bullshit" and saying, "I'm anti Israel buying American elections." Gonzales suspended his campaign two days after the primary, leaving Herrera the presumptive nominee.

In November 2025, Herrera announced his campaign had raised $1.1 million dollars for the primary, with over 33,000 small dollar donors contributing alongside his own PACs. On February 18, 2026, Herrera called on Gonzales to exit the race and resign over an alleged affair with a former staffer who committed suicide in November after another former Gonzales staffer backed the rumors.

In March of 2026, after an initial primary that prompted a runoff, in which Herrera placed first and Gonzalez second, Gonzalez conceded the race, leading to the cancellation of the runoff and Herrera becoming the presumptive nominee.

Electoral history 2024

2026

Commentary and criticism Herrera's content contains what he has described as "dark humor". He has boasted about his 1939 edition of Mein Kampf, while calling Adolf Hitler a "schizophrenic" and called his Nazi-era submachine gun "Hitler's street sweeper." In the same interview, Brandon, and the other co-hosts of Unsubscribe referenced and complimented Dorothy Thompson's assessment of Mein Kampf, an American journalist whom frequently questioned the mental sanity and capability of Hitler. In a 2020 video, Herrera played the songs "Erika", "Grüne Teufel" (meaning "Green Devils" a modernized Fallschirmjäger variant of "Teufelslied"), and "Panzerlied" (Tank Song), with other Third Reich-related songs in the background while covering firearms that were used by the Nazis; Herrera subsequently "liked" numerous comments praising his use of the Nazi marching songs in the video. In a 2022 video, he referred to the MP40, a submachine gun developed by Nazi Germany, as the "original ghetto blaster". The video includes a montage of Herrera and an associate firing the weapon and goose stepping to "Erika". Another video, covering historical weapons in the Rhodesian Bush War, featured the flag of Rhodesia, a symbol used by white nationalists. Herrera responded to criticism, saying, "This should be obvious, but I am not, nor have I ever been a neo-Nazi." a neo-Confederate organization that promotes the Lost Cause. Herrera is listed as a new member in the 2008 May/June issue of Confederate Veteran Magazine He appeared in welcome videos produced by the organization, where he referred to the American Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression" and the "War for Southern Independence", and advertised the group's "annual Yankee shoot", where members used antique rifles to shoot at "posters of [their] favorite Yankees". Herrera's support for the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization was stated in the videos citing the need to preserve history, "because those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Herrera has referred to children as "cum trophies" while criticizing the political opinions of mothers. In 2023, he said:

When these comments were resurfaced in 2026 during Herrera's race for Congress, Herrera's campaign responded to a request for comment from an Austin American-Statesman journalist about the sexual references by sending her a picture of a cream pie.

Herrera described his 2023 video "recreating" the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. as an attempt to combine "a pretty somber and serious topic" with "dark, edgy humor." However, a reporter at MeidasTouch speculated that the attempt "may not sit well with voters," pointing out that "At the end of his video, Herrera shot the MLK target dummy at close proximity, execution style, laughed, then commented, 'this is so fucking wrong.'"