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Mark Lightner III
Mark Lightner III (Republican Party) ran in a special election to the Florida State Senate to represent District 19. He lost in the special Republican primary on April 1, 2025.
Lightner completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Mark Lightner III was born in Melbourne, Florida. He graduated from Viera High School. He earned an associate degree from Eastern Florida State College in 2019 and a bachelor's degree from the University of North Florida in 2021. His career experience includes working in business.[1]
Elections
2025
See also: Florida state legislative special elections, 2025
General election
Special general election for Florida State Senate District 19
Debbie Mayfield defeated Vance Ahrens in the special general election for Florida State Senate District 19 on June 10, 2025.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Debbie Mayfield (R) | 54.4 | 37,557 |
 | Vance Ahrens (D) | 45.6 | 31,446 | |
| Total votes: 69,003 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
The Democratic primary election was canceled. Vance Ahrens advanced from the special Democratic primary for Florida State Senate District 19.
Republican primary election
Special Republican primary for Florida State Senate District 19
Debbie Mayfield defeated Mark Lightner III, Tim Thomas, and Marcelle Adkins in the special Republican primary for Florida State Senate District 19 on April 1, 2025.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Debbie Mayfield | 60.8 | 23,637 |
 | Mark Lightner III | 16.1 | 6,264 | |
 | Tim Thomas | 13.3 | 5,183 | |
 | Marcelle Adkins | 9.7 | 3,786 | |
| Total votes: 38,870 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Gabriel Goddard (R)
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Lightner in this election.
Campaign themes
2025
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Mark Lightner III completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Lightner'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 continued my education at the University of North Florida, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Business. It was there, on just the second day of college, that I met my now wife, Karina. She was—and still is—my first and only girlfriend, and I thank God every day for blessing me with her. After about a year of dating, I proposed, and we married shortly after.
Even before leaving for college, I knew Brevard County was where I wanted to build my future. So, after we both graduated, Karina and I moved back home to start our family and careers. A year into our marriage, we received the incredible news that she was pregnant with our now one-year-old. Being a husband and father has been the greatest blessing of my life—there is no higher calling for a man. If only more men understood that truth.
My passion for politics started at a young age. I have always viewed public service as a platform to uplift and strengthen our communities—whether at the local, state, or federal level. Unfortunately, I have not seen many politicians use their positions in the right way. Inspiring me to be the outlier.- THE NEXT GENERATION:
Republicans, think about your network of friends, family, and coworkers. I would guess a vast majority of those people you are thinking of and are Republican are a part of the older generations. A small portion of those people may be around my age, 24. This is a problem. This is a problem to maintain the Republican values in our representative government for generations to come. We simply need more young people to be actively participating in the political sphere.
My hope is to inspire the next generation of Republicans that they can and they should participate in all levels of government and the political sphere. The next generation needs a voice that they can relate to. They need a voice that can lead the charge. - TERM LIMITS: In the state of Florida we have a half-measure when it comes to our law regarding term-limits. The law simply states that a person can serve 8 consecutive years then they must be out for 1 year and then they can serve another 8 years, and so on. We all know that politicians become more and more corrupt the more time they spend in office. Not only does this promote corruption, but it does not promote fresh perspectives and new ideas. Improving the state law to set an 8 year term limit for the life of the person is the solution. It will reduce corruption and promote fresh solutions to our state's problems.
- PAC REGULATION: In 2013 the state of Florida removed the limit that PACs can donate to a political candidate, however, we the people still have a cap placed on us. This means that PACs are able to contribute and unlimited amount of money to assist in a candidate winning an election. Do you think this often large sum of money will sway a person when it comes time for them to vote on a bill or the FL state budget? Of course! This is why we need to put a cap on PACs to reduce the sway they have over our representative body. Furthermore, PACs are allowed to exchange money from one PAC to another. This creates the perfect environment for them to launder money from one campaign to the next. Eliminating this ability will promote proper elections.
The FL state budget in 2024 was $116.5 BILLION. Roughly, 20% of that budget came from the Federal government. Do you expect the Federal government ,whose debt increases by $1 TRILLION every 100 days, to keep giving us money? Florida needs to protect itself and start being wise with it's money. We cannot rely on the federal government so heavily.
No compromising(A small compromise always leads to more.)
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.
Campaign finance summary
Campaign finance information for this candidate is not yet available from OpenSecrets. That information will be published here once it is available.
See also
2025 Elections
External links
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Candidate Florida State Senate District 19 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on February 6, 2025
