Gracey Van Der Mark, Chris Kluwe bring different ideologies to District 72 race
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Gracey Van Der Mark and Chris Kluwe are both passionate about the reasons they’re running to represent District 72 in the California State Assembly.
That remains true, even as the two Huntington Beach residents themselves seemingly couldn’t be more opposite.
In fact, the main reason that Kluwe, a Democrat, decided to run for the Assembly instead of the local city council was because Van Der Mark, a Republican, had already declared for the District 72 race.
“In my head, I was like, ‘I really do not want Gracey getting more political power,’ because I’ve seen what she does with it at the local level,” Kluwe said. “I don’t think she’ll be an effective representative for us at the state level.”
So, the happily retired former NFL punter and longtime activist went to the Democratic Party of Orange County and asked if he could support a candidate for the seat.
“Their response was, ‘No, you should run for the seat,’” Kluwe, 44, recalled with a laugh. “I was like, ‘OK, guess I’m running for state Assembly then.’”
Van Der Mark, 52, has been perhaps the most singular representative of Huntington Beach’s MAGA council since she was elected four years ago. She was mayor in 2024.
In her time on the council, Huntington Beach has become involved in multiple lawsuits with the state regarding state housing mandates, the Pacific Airshow settlement and more.
“More and more people are starting to realize that positions like council, that are closer to the people, are the ones that make the biggest difference in our community,” she said. “We just need to make sure that those council members have the support that they need, in order to advocate for that local control and exercise it.”
Making things more affordable for families is one of her major goals, she said, bemoaning what the state has become under Democratic leadership.
Van Der Mark, who was pregnant at 19, has seen her daughter earn her master’s degree and give birth to Van Der Mark’s two grandsons, with a granddaughter on the way early next year. She said that two of her three children, sons ages 25 and 27, live at home with her because they can’t afford a place of their own.
“People say, ‘Why are you running for this [when Democrats] have the super-majority,’” Van Der Mark said. “Somebody has to try to change things. My daughter has talked about moving to Florida. She’s talked about moving to Arizona. I want to be here to raise my grandkids … I don’t want to raise them through an iPad and FaceTime.”
Van Der Mark, who said she is a domestic violence survivor, moved from the small city of Maywood in southeast Los Angeles County to Orange County about 25 years ago in search of a better life. She and her husband, Pieter, now have a blended family.
“Sometimes I’d be in my car with my kids, trying to find a safe place to park,” she said, tearing up. “I’d wonder, why is this happening to me? How could I be living in my car with my kids? But now I realize that had I not gone through all of that, I wouldn’t be strong enough to do what I’m doing now.”
Kluwe, who grew up in Seal Beach, is a Los Alamitos High and UCLA graduate. He has two children with his wife Isabel.
Kluwe has long been a vocal detractor of the MAGA politics espoused by people like Van Der Mark, who led efforts to try to move children’s books deemed sexual or explicit at the library. Van Der Mark and her council colleagues also decided to establish a parent/guardian children’s book review board, but that was voted down by Surf City residents in a special election last year.
“I’ll never regret advocating to protect kids,” Van Der Mark said. “I was a library page. I used to relocate books, that’s what we did. It’s normal. But nobody calls that book banning ... We tried to do the right thing.”
In February 2025, Kluwe was arrested at a Huntington Beach council meeting after approaching the dais following his public comments.
The issue at that time was a plaque commemorating the Central Library’s 50th anniversary that spelled out “MAGA.” The plaque was improved but never installed.
When asked if he regretted having been arrested at that council meeting, Kluwe said, “Not at all. I would absolutely do it again. As a history and poli sci major, that’s something where if I read that in a history book, I’d be like, ‘Oh yeah, that person did the right thing.’ I’m fairly confident that will stand up to the test of history.”
Assembly District 72 encompasses coastal Orange County, including Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Laguna Hills, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Woods, Lake Forest and portions of Huntington Beach and Seal Beach. The seat is open because incumbent Diane Dixon, a Republican and former Newport Beach council member, is vacating it as she runs for the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
The district has 39.4% percent of voters registered as Republican, according to the Orange County Registrar of Voters. It has 32.1% registered as Democrat and 21.5% registered as no-party preference.
Kluwe said he would have no problem working across the aisle.
“Small-c conservatism absolutely has a place in our democracy,” he said. “The problem is that MAGA politics is fundamentally anti-democratic. It does not believe in democracy as an institution. I’m perfectly willing to work with principled, small-c conservative Republicans who really do want to fix things. Maybe we disagree on the importance of budget priorities, the things we should address first. Those are all things we can talk about and come to a consensus on.”
Kluwe has out-raised Van Der Mark, disclosing more than $1.1 million of fundraising this year through Sept. 19. That included more than $650,000 from the Democratic party.
Van Der Mark, who had raised $314,000 as of the same point in the race, said she feels like she understands why the district is being targeted.
“In my opinion, this is about taking away the last safe area for conservatives,” she said. “The Democrats don’t feel conservatives deserve a place for us to feel safe … They will continue to have a super-majority. What they want to do is just chip us off one at a time. [Kluwe] claims to represent everyone, but we need more balance in Sacramento. Even the Democrats in Sacramento have admitted that we need more balance, it’s gone too far to one side.”
Both candidates cited caring for the environment as an important issue. Yet, housing remains a distinct difference.
Van Der Mark has helped lead Huntington Beach’s fight against a state requirement for 13,368 additional units during the current Regional Housing Needs Allocation cycle. The city is currently being fined each month for failing to adopt a compliant housing element, but earlier this month, the state asked San Diego Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal to increase the damage to $100,000 a month, with a possible three-times multiplier.
“We need to have a proper and effective appeals process, which we don’t have,” Van Der Mark said, adding that state Sen Tony Strickland, a former Huntington Beach council member and mayor, worked on some legislation to that effect but it was voted down. “We need to protect local control.”
Kluwe said cities in the district need to do their part to contribute their fair share.
“Maybe you don’t want a 20-story high density apartment building,” he said. “That’s fine. Let’s talk about what can we do that fits within the culture of our community, while at the same time working toward solving this problem.
“When I played football, I would have loved to punt the ball down the field as hard as I could every time. That would have been amazing for my stats. But my special teams coaches are like, ‘Chris, we can’t cover that effectively. We need you to kick it higher and shorter and out to the side.’ And yeah, that affected my stats. It affected them negatively, but it was what the team needed to win, so that’s what I did. We need to keep that same mind set when it comes to our society.”
