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Mark Vafiades
Mark Vafiades (Republican Party) ran for election to the Virginia State Senate to represent District 35. He lost in the general election on November 7, 2023.
Vafiades completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Mark Vafiades earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts in 1980.[1]
Elections
2023
See also: Virginia State Senate elections, 2023
General election
General election for Virginia State Senate District 35
Incumbent Dave Marsden defeated Mark Vafiades in the general election for Virginia State Senate District 35 on November 7, 2023.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Dave Marsden (D) | 67.6 | 39,441 |
 | Mark Vafiades (R)  | 32.0 | 18,677 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.3 | 198 | ||
| Total votes: 58,316 | |||
| = 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 Virginia State Senate District 35
Incumbent Dave Marsden defeated Heidi Drauschak in the Democratic primary for Virginia State Senate District 35 on June 20, 2023.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Dave Marsden | 62.7 | 12,179 |
 | Heidi Drauschak | 37.3 | 7,260 | |
| Total votes: 19,439 | |||
| = 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
The Republican primary election was canceled. Mark Vafiades advanced from the Republican primary for Virginia State Senate District 35.
Endorsements
Vafiades received the following endorsements.
Campaign themes
2023
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Mark Vafiades completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Vafiades' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Mark Vafiades has been a longtime activist and advocate for citizens and families. He has worked in the private sector, the Federal and State government, owned a small business and is a retired reserve Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy, who worked in patrol for 20 years.
Mark has a broad and eclectic background which puts him at great advantage when understanding and discussing how bad legislation affects the economy and therefor the citizens and families of Virginia.
Mark is a Constitutional/Fiscal conservative.
- Fix Educational system and ensure Parental rights
- Crime Control and Support for Law Enforcement
- Address high inflation and lower out of control taxes.
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.
2016 Republican National Convention
Mark Vafiades was a district-level delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention from California. All 172 delegates from California were bound by state party rules to support Donald Trump at the convention.[2] As of July 13, 2016, Trump had approximately 1,542 delegates. The winner of the Republican nomination needed the support of 1,237 delegates. Trump formally won the nomination on July 19, 2016.
Delegate rules
Republican presidential candidates were responsible for selecting their own delegates from California to the national convention. California state law required delegates to support the winner of the California Republican primary election unless that candidate received less than 10 percent of the vote at the convention in the first round of voting; or if the candidate released them; or if voting at the convention proceeded to a third round.
California primary results
| California Republican Primary, 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes | Delegates | |
 Donald Trump |
74.7% | 1,582,099 | 172 | |
| Ted Cruz | 9.5% | 201,441 | 0 | |
| John Kasich | 11.4% | 242,073 | 0 | |
| Ben Carson | 0.7% | 14,938 | 0 | |
| Jim Gilmore | 3.7% | 77,417 | 0 | |
| Totals | 2,117,968 | 172 | ||
| Source: The New York Times and California Secretary of State | ||||
Delegate allocation
California had 172 delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Of this total, 159 were district-level delegates (three for each of the state's 53 congressional districts). California's district delegates were allocated on a winner-take-all basis; the plurality winner in a given congressional district won all of that district's delegates.[3][4]
Of the remaining 13 delegates, 10 served at large. California's at-large delegates were allocated on a winner-take-all basis; the plurality winner of the statewide primary vote received all of the state's at-large delegates. In addition, three national party leaders (identified on the chart below as RNC delegates) served as bound delegates to the Republican National Convention. The RNC delegates were required to pledge their support to the winner of the state's primary.[3][4]
See also
2023 Elections
External links
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Candidate Virginia State Senate District 35 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 15, 2023
- ↑ CA GOP, "Updated delegate list," accessed July 11, 2016
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Republican National Committee, "2016 Presidential Nominating Process," accessed October 6, 2015
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 CNN.com, "Republican National Convention roll call vote," accessed July 20, 2016
