There’s a “likelihood” Patrick Brown will run for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership, according to a family friend and the past president of the party’s Simcoe North riding association.

Scott Macpherson told Simcoe.com Feb. 15 there is “widespread sympathy” for Brown, who resigned as leader in late January after he was accused by two women of sexual misconduct.

“I’ve been getting phone calls, emails and texts from party members encouraging and exhorting Patrick Brown to re-seek the leadership,” he said. “There is a likelihood — I can’t say a strong likelihood, I just think there’s a likelihood — but time is running out.”

Macpherson said he had relayed those comments to a close family member of Brown’s.

The nomination deadline for leadership candidates is Feb. 16 at 5 p.m. There are four confirmed candidates so far: venture-fund manager Caroline Mulroney, former Toronto Coun. Doug Ford, ex-MPP Christine Elliott and parent activist Tanya Granic Allen.

Nothing in the PC leadership election rules seems to specifically prevent Brown from running, although a party official was not immediately available to comment on whether Brown had inquired about a bid.

Macpherson was one of Brown’s earliest supporters in Simcoe North. He is currently vice-president of the Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte provincial PC riding association, where Brown remains the party’s candidate for June’s election.

“There seems to be very widespread sympathy for his situation that he’s found himself in and he is trying his utmost to clear his name,” Macpherson said.

On Jan. 24, CTV News reported that two women said when Brown was a Conservative MP and they were teenagers, he made unwanted sexual advances toward them. The identity of the women was kept confidential.

Brown has continually denied the allegations since and has said on social media and through interviews with Postmedia and Global News that he will disprove the accusations.