He served on the Board of Grain Commissioners of Canada, as a reeve for Grandview and was president of the Union of Manitoba Municipalities.
[2] He first campaigned for the Manitoba legislature in the 1941 provincial election, but lost to Stanley Fox of the Social Credit League by over 600 votes in the Gilbert Plains constituency.
Both Mitchell and Fox were supporters of the coalition government led by Premier John Bracken.
He served as a backbench supporter of Douglas Campbell's government during his time in the legislature.
In the 1958 election, he lost to Keith Alexander of the Progressive Conservative Party[1] by 198 votes in the redistributed constituency of Roblin.