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Ciprian Ivanof
Ciprian Ivanof (Republican Party) ran for election for U.S. Shadow Representative District of Columbia. He lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Ivanof completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Ciprian Ivanof was born in Romania. He served in the U.S. Army National Guard from 2008 to 2017. He earned a high school diploma from the Lycée Français Anna de Noailles, a bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 2013, and a law degree from Washington College of Law in 2018. His career experience includes working as an attorney.[1][2]
Elections
2024
See also: United States House of Representatives election in the District of Columbia, 2024
General election
General election for U.S. Shadow Representative District of Columbia
Incumbent Oye Owolewa defeated Ciprian Ivanof in the general election for U.S. Shadow Representative District of Columbia on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Oye Owolewa (D) | 90.7 | 267,661 |
 | Ciprian Ivanof (R)  | 8.5 | 25,040 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.8 | 2,253 | ||
| Total votes: 294,954 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. Shadow Representative District of Columbia
Incumbent Oye Owolewa defeated Linda L. Gray in the Democratic primary for U.S. Shadow Representative District of Columbia on June 4, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Oye Owolewa | 57.7 | 46,582 |
 | Linda L. Gray | 40.7 | 32,863 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 1.7 | 1,340 | ||
| Total votes: 80,785 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for U.S. Shadow Representative District of Columbia
Ciprian Ivanof advanced from the Republican primary for U.S. Shadow Representative District of Columbia on June 4, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Ciprian Ivanof | 88.5 | 1,737 |
| Other/Write-in votes | 11.5 | 225 | ||
| Total votes: 1,962 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Ivanof in this election.
Campaign themes
2024
Campaign website
Ciprian Ivanof’s campaign website stated the following:
| “ |
Key Issues and Promises Since the Shadow representative has no real power except being in the Wilson building, my promises might seem underwhelming. They are still better than pretending the city is doing great. To get actually great results, somebody has to worry and ask questions.
|
” |
| —Ciprian Ivanof’s campaign website (2024)[4] | ||
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Ciprian Ivanof completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Ivanof's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I lived east of Meridian Park, went to school with rich kids, and went with my adoptive father to his Navy Reserve drills. The divide was stark.
After social workers took me away, I saw more of the way rich people were ignorant of the problems of the poor part of the city. I moved to Wisconsin and saw a genuinely well functioning city, and moved to post-Communist Romania. There, I saw the broken people after the decades of misrule by the Communist party and the mistakes of the still dishonest ruling party (not quite a full democracy yet). It was undeniable one party rule covered up corruption and incompetence.
I came to Minnesota for undergrad (studied History and Political Science) where the generations of rule by the DFL seemed to have produced a pleasant city. Of course, the reality was a bit more complicated as Minnesota had a real opposition party so the bills were actually debated more than DC.
I came to DC again for law school. I see my old building actually has grass around it. I also see when the murder rate was lower than mild childhood but climbing.
DC Can be a good city, it takes actual open government and debate, not mindless adherence to the one party.- DC is in trouble and politicians distract us with "statehood" to hide their blunders.
Statehood will not happen this generation because too many congressmen and staffers have been attacked. Meanwhile, crime is out of control and the judges that the US delegate can investigate were not investigated. The local government can do stuff but distracts people.
A certain amount of distraction or corruption is inevitable in government but the current level has become intolerable. - Decisions get made without much debate in one-party systems. DC is a one party system and has wild (but secretive) swings in administration. We need debate to know what the pitfalls of a policy might be. Decriminalizing fare evasion was a monumentally stupid decision that passed through council because there was so little debate. The result is a bigger deficit for metro, losing routes, and expensive armed security to protect passengers and workers after too many murders.
- One party rule means nobody really knows what they are voting for because the distinctions are so hard to see and the party alliances make it hard to overtly point out differences. One party rule is insider politics and that hurts the ability of ordinary people to point out problems.
Mass transit cannot work if people fear getting assaulted.
Education policy is trivial if children spend more time trying to avoid getting assaulted than interested in the schoolwork.
Just removing that distraction would be an improvement. Using the access it provides to point out problems in the city would make it even better.
He had failed initially in his younger projects but remained clear eyed enough to see the threat the Nazis and Communists presented. Even when he was dismissed by most in his political party, he kept on pointing out the specific details that proved the evil intentions of Hitler and Stalin.
How do stupid policies that hurt the functioning of society get support? Sometimes it is as simple as short-sighted egotism.
Goodbye Lenin (2003 German film)
Even corrupt people can still run a system if they have some basic idea of the system and don't want their reputation tarnished. Intellectually dishonest people can fool themselves into letting the system burn immediately.
Loyalty to the society
Loyalty does not mean parroting dumb slogans, it means doing what is best for the mission and for the society. There are many moments when politicians stop looking at the good of the society and look at how to rake in public money after their term. Loyalty means accepting personal hardship for the collective good.
Courage
Statehood is a distraction, I will not lobby for it. Instead, I plan to lobby the council for the needs of small businesses.
The political risks and regulatory mess that is DC government means that big businesses have to spend lobbying money to operate but small businesses usually don't have that.
The role is to distract people so they give perks to make people think they are valued. However, those perks can also be used to remind the real powers in DC of their own failures.
Rather, the best thing is to turn it from a malign distraction to a way for politically disenfranchised people to have a representative to criticize the mistakes of the actually powerful people like the Mayor and councilmembers.
I assume they already know enough to distrust politicians.
"The food is terrible. How can you stand it?"
"I can't complain."
"The buildings are crumbling. How can you stand it?"
"I can't complain."
The streets are dirty.
"I can't complain."
"The elevators don't work."
"I can't complain."
"Why don't you fix any of it?"
The best check to a bad politician is another politician hungry for applause and prestige. The media can be distracted or corrupt, civic leaders bought off, activists can be intimidated. But if egotistical politicians can be rewarded for finding problems with their opponents, they are a reliable check against other politicians.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2024 Elections
Government
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Ivanof 4 D.C., "Biography," accessed June 3, 2024
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 6, 2024
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ [XURLX Ciprian Ivanof’s campaign website, “Home,” accessed June 3, 2024]
