{"id":217021,"date":"2026-03-12T21:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217021\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T21:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:23:13","slug":"will-republicans-back-harper-or-van-der-mark-in-the-72nd-assembly-district-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217021\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Republicans back Harper or Van Der Mark in the 72nd Assembly District? \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

The race<\/a> for California\u2019s 72nd Assembly District this year features fireworks between two Republican contenders. Gracey Van Der Mark<\/a> has been Huntington Beach councilmember since 2022 and mayor in 2023. Matthew Harper<\/a>, who represented District 74 from 2014-2018, was also previously Surf City\u2019s mayor.<\/p>\n

Currently represented by Republican Diane Dixon, who has chosen to run for Orange County supervisor, the district boundaries stretch<\/a> from Seal Beach down along the coast to Laguna Beach, then slide inland up to Lake Forest. Party registration<\/a>, as of February 20: 39% GOP, 33% Democrat and 21% No Party Preference.<\/p>\n

Supported<\/a> by party leaders, Democrats hope former NFL punter Chris Kluwe<\/a> will flip the seat. He likely will score one of the slots in the June 2 Top Two contest. He\u2019s running under the slogan, \u201cLet\u2019s Kickstart Sacramento.\u201d I will concentrate on the Republicans\u2019 contest for the second Top Two slot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In interviewing both, my first concern was whether they could have any influence as backbenchers in an Assembly currently with Republicans in just 20 of 80 seats, a superminority.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should take issues that make sense along party lines,\u201d Van Der Mark said. She brought up 2023\u2019s Senate Bill 14<\/a>, by Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, as an example of what Republicans can get done. That bill defined trafficking of a minor as a serious felony. It passed unanimously in both houses and was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Van Der Mark also pointed to Dixon in 2023 bringing<\/a> $1.8 million in state funding for local infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Based on his last stint in the legislature, Harper said he found Republicans in the minority could push ideas Democrats in turn would sometimes incorporate into other bills. He pointed to his Assembly Bill 2391<\/a> from 2018 that sought to include suicide prevention hotlines on student IDs. It passed the Assembly unanimously, but died in the Senate. However, it later influenced Senate Bill 972<\/a>, carried by a Democrat, which put those numbers on the IDs of students in grades 7 to 12. In turn, this prompted Assembly Bill 2122<\/a> from 2022 which placed a mental health hotline on the IDs of students in the Cal State, UC and Community College systems.<\/p>\n

The top issue hitting the next Legislature will be the ongoing budget crisis caused by Newsom bloating<\/a> the state workforce by 20% and ramping up spending faster than revenue growth. The Legislative Analyst\u2019s Office warned<\/a> in January of \u201calarming\u201d future budget deficits \u201cranging from $20\u00a0billion to $35\u00a0billion annually.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Harper said, \u201cI want to be able to meet the moment and block any tax increases\u201d Democrats might push.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Van Der Mark said she favors \u201ccommon-sense governance\u201d and \u201cwe need to find common-sense Democrats. We should partner up and say, \u2018Hey, are you tired of the waste and abuse?\u2019 I don\u2019t think just because somebody\u2019s a Democrat, they\u2019re evil. I can work across party lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Der Mark has been a leader in pushing several Huntington Beach controversies and would bring that style to the Assembly. For example, she backed council attempts to police what books could appear where in the city\u2019s library system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Harper also brought up charges of antisemitism against his opponent. In 2018, the OC Weekly reported<\/a> Van Der Mark said on a since-deleted YouTube, \u201cThis meeting was being run by the elderly Jewish people who were in there. The colored people were there doing what the elderly Jewish people instructed them to do.\u201d She replied at the time, \u201cNothing I wrote was antisemitic or demeaning to black people,\u201d and she was just making an observation.<\/p>\n

Van Der Mark told me of Harper, \u201cHe\u2019s just bringing up leftist talking points that were used to try to stop me from being on the council, and they didn\u2019t work. Because Californians are smart enough to do their own research. My husband\u2019s uncle was murdered by the NSB<\/a>, the Nazi party in the Netherlands,\u201d which cooperated with Hitler during the German occupation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all been vetted out, and it\u2019s just a bunch of garbage,\u201d Will O\u2019Neill, the chairman of the OC Republican Party, told me about this line of criticism against Van Der Mark. She received<\/a> the county party\u2019s endorsement over Harper.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whoever wins in November will fly to Sacramento to face the mess left behind by a governor departed for the frigid Iowa campaign hustings.<\/p>\n

John Seiler is on the SCNG editorial board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The race for California\u2019s 72nd Assembly District this year features fireworks between two Republican contenders. Gracey Van Der…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,975,2082],"class_list":["post-217021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-opinion","tag-opinion-columnists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}