Draft:CreateGraceyVDM

• Comment: We do not generally cover politicians in the USA below state legislatures, under WP:NPOL. The general view is that all local level politics is "run of the mill" and not notable. Applies (in the USA) to Republicans, Democrats and Independents equally. On an exceptional basis, city mayors may end with an article but they have to be doing it for a while and realistically it needs to be a big city. And a true "city boss" rather than 1 year figurehead rotations.
  The article is not neutral either, it's essentially written from the subject's point of view and someone involved in these issues may be expected to have generated more criticism than comes across here. That would be fixable but the fundamentals of NPOL are not. The article would be Rejected, but it's just possible the subject was notable before they went into politics, so leaving the door very slightly ajar. ChrysGalley (talk) 18:50, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

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Gracey Van Der Mark (born Gricelda Larrea) is an American politician, business owner and conservative activist who has served on the Huntington Beach City Council since December 2022. A member of the Republican Party, she served as mayor of Huntington Beach in 2024. She is a candidate in the 2026 California State Assembly election for California's 72nd State Assembly district.

Gracey Van Der Mark
Van Der Mark in 2023
Mayor of Huntington Beach
In office December 6, 2023 – December 3, 2024
Preceded by	Tony Strickland
Succeeded by	Pat Burns
Member of the Huntington Beach City Council
Incumbent
Assumed office December 6, 2022
Personal details
Born	Gricelda Larrea
Party	Republican
Spouse	Pieter Van der Mark
Children	7
Occupation	Business owner, politician

Van Der Mark became involved in Huntington Beach politics through local education, immigration and conservative activism. She was elected to the City Council in 2022 as part of a four-candidate conservative slate that won a majority on the seven-member council.

Before her election to the council, Van Der Mark drew public attention for comments she made after attending a 2017 anti-racism workshop in Santa Monica and for a YouTube playlist titled "Holocaust hoax?" that contained Holocaust-denial material.

During her tenure on the City Council, Van Der Mark has supported policies involving library materials, parental rights, municipal flag displays, voter identification and greater local autonomy from the California state government. Her political positions and the council majority's policies have drawn support from conservative activists and criticism from library advocates, LGBTQ-rights groups and other opponents.

In 2026, Van Der Mark advanced from California's top-two primary to the general election for the 72nd Assembly district, where she is running against Democrat Chris Kluwe.

Early life and career

Van Der Mark was born Gricelda Larrea to immigrant parents; her father was from Ecuador and her mother from Mexico. She grew up in Maywood, California, in southeastern Los Angeles County, and was the ninth of eleven children.

She became a mother at age 19. Van Der Mark has said that during her first marriage she experienced poverty and domestic violence and, for a period, slept in a car with her children.

She later married Pieter Van der Mark in 2000. The couple moved to Huntington Beach and raised a blended family of seven children. According to her campaign biography, they operate a property-management business. Van Der Mark previously worked as a copier technician.

Van Der Mark has said that her experiences with her children's schools led to her involvement in local education issues. She has described herself as a former liberal Democrat and feminist and has said that she voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election before moving politically to the right and voting for Donald Trump in 2016.

Political career

Early activism and school district involvement

Van Der Mark became active in local conservative politics during the 2010s. She served on citizen oversight committees associated with the Ocean View School District and the Huntington Beach City School District, as well as on Huntington Beach's Finance Commission.

In 2017, Van Der Mark attended a protest at an anti-racism workshop in Santa Monica organized by the Committee for Racial Justice. Reporting about the event said that other protesters included people associated with the Proud Boys.

Afterward, Van Der Mark uploaded video from the event to YouTube. In an accompanying post she wrote:

This meeting was being ran by the elderly Jewish people who were in there. The colored people were there doing what the elderly Jewish people instructed them to do.

The comments drew criticism from local officials and the Anti-Defamation League, which questioned Van Der Mark's suitability for public positions.

Van Der Mark denied that the comments reflected racist or antisemitic views. She said that she was using terminology she had encountered at the event and stated:

I consider myself to be a colored person. I am not offended by the term.

In April and May 2018, the Ocean View School District and Huntington Beach City School District removed Van Der Mark from their respective bond oversight committees following complaints over the comments and her online activity.

Huntington Beach Councilmember Patrick Brenden separately reviewed calls to remove her from the city's Finance Commission. In May 2018 he said he had found "insufficient evidence" to establish cause for removing her, and she remained on the commission.

During the same period, attention was drawn to a public playlist on Van Der Mark's YouTube account titled "Holocaust hoax?", which contained videos questioning or denying aspects of the Holocaust.

Van Der Mark has denied being a Holocaust denier or antisemitic. She said that the videos had been sent to her and that she saved them for research because she wanted to understand Holocaust denial. She said that the question mark in the playlist title was intended to indicate that she was questioning the material rather than endorsing it. In a 2023 interview, she said she had never watched the videos.

She unsuccessfully ran for the Ocean View School District Board of Trustees in 2018.

Van Der Mark ran for Huntington Beach City Council in 2020 but was not elected. In 2021, she was among the finalists considered to replace councilmember Tito Ortiz following his resignation.

Huntington Beach City Council

Van Der Mark ran again for Huntington Beach City Council in 2022. She was elected alongside Pat Burns, Tony Strickland and Casey McKeon. The four candidates formed a conservative slate and collectively gained a majority on the seven-member council.

Official city results reported 33,833 votes for Van Der Mark. She took office in December 2022.

During her council tenure, the conservative majority pursued changes involving library policy, municipal flag displays, voter identification, COVID-19 policy and challenges to state housing requirements.

Mayor of Huntington Beach

Van Der Mark was selected by the City Council to serve as mayor for 2024. Huntington Beach uses a council-manager system in which the mayor is selected annually from among the seven councilmembers.

She was the first Latina to serve as mayor of Huntington Beach.

Her selection departed from the city's informal rotation convention, under which several longer-serving councilmembers might otherwise have served as mayor before her. Discussing the decision, Van Der Mark said:

I think you should stand up and push back against something that's not right. These people were not right for the job.

Her mayoral term ended in December 2024, when the council selected Pat Burns as mayor. Van Der Mark remained a councilmember.

2026 California State Assembly campaign

In 2025, Van Der Mark announced her candidacy for California's 72nd State Assembly district after incumbent Republican Assemblymember Diane Dixon announced that she would not seek another Assembly term.

The other major candidates in the 2026 California State Assembly election included Democrat Chris Kluwe, a former National Football League player, and former Republican Assemblymember Matthew Harper.

In the June 2, 2026 top-two primary, Kluwe and Van Der Mark received the two highest vote totals and advanced to the November 3 general election.

Political views

Van Der Mark identifies as a conservative Republican and has been associated with the Make America Great Again movement. She has supported Donald Trump and has described her political shift from voting for Barack Obama in 2008 to supporting Trump beginning with the 2016 election.

Education and libraries

Van Der Mark has made parental control over children's education and access to library materials a significant part of her political platform.

In June 2023, while serving as mayor pro tempore, she introduced a City Council proposal directing city officials to develop rules restricting minors' access to material deemed obscene or pornographic and to create new screening procedures for children's library materials. Her proposal also asked city staff to consider ending Huntington Beach's affiliation with the American Library Association.

Van Der Mark has argued that some materials available to minors contain inappropriate sexual content. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, she said:

Parents don't know that this garbage is in our library.

Critics of the council's library policies, including library advocates and LGBTQ-rights organizations, have argued that the measures amount to censorship or disproportionately affect books dealing with LGBTQ subjects. Van Der Mark and other supporters have described the policies as age-based restrictions intended to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit material.

LGBT issues

Van Der Mark supported restrictions on which flags may be displayed on city property, including policies that prevented the Pride flag from being routinely flown at municipal buildings.

She has rejected characterizations of her library policies as opposition to LGBT people, saying that her objections concern sexual content available to minors rather than the sexual orientation or gender identity of characters or authors.

Local government and state policy

Van Der Mark has supported efforts to increase Huntington Beach's autonomy from the California state government, particularly regarding elections, housing and other municipal policies.

She supported the city's voter-identification requirement for municipal elections. In 2024, while serving on Huntington Beach's Intergovernmental Relations Committee, she joined recommendations opposing state legislation that sought to prevent local governments from imposing voter-identification requirements.

Van Der Mark has portrayed Huntington Beach as a politically conservative community in conflict with California's predominantly Democratic state government. In a 2024 interview with The Washington Post, she said:

We're living in a state that's not welcoming to us; conservative values are not really welcomed. We just want a safe space for people who share our values.

Discussing allegations of racism in Huntington Beach and whether she had personally experienced it, Van Der Mark told the Los Angeles Times:

If there was racism, I didn't notice it.

Personal life

Van Der Mark is married to Pieter Van der Mark. They have a blended family of seven children and live in Huntington Beach.

External links

• Campaign website
• Gracey Van Der Mark at the City of Huntington Beach