Mike Vaska

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Mike Vaska

Republican Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

August 4, 2020

Education

Bachelor's

Stanford University, 1982

Law

University of Chicago, 1985

Personal

Birthplace

Grand Rapids, Mich.

Religion

Lutheran

Profession

Attorney

Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Campaign Instagram

Campaign YouTube

Mike Vaska (Republican Party) ran for election for Attorney General of Washington. He lost in the primary on August 4, 2020.

Vaska completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Mike Vaska was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He obtained a bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1982 and a J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1985. His professional experience includes working as an attorney. As of 2020, he was the lead attorney for the consumer protection and antitrust practice at the law firm of Foster Garvey (formerly Foster Pepper). He began working at the firm in 1985. He previously served as the vice chair at Crosscut Public Media, chair of the Mainstream Republicans of Washington, and on the board of the Discovery Institute and the Boy Scouts of America's Chief Seattle Council.

Elections

2020

See also: Washington Attorney General election, 2020

General election

General election for Attorney General of Washington

Incumbent Bob Ferguson defeated Matt Larkin in the general election for Attorney General of Washington on November 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Bob Ferguson (D)	56.4	2,226,418
		Matt Larkin (R)	43.5	1,714,927
		Other/Write-in votes	0.1	3,968

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 3,945,313
= 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.
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Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for Attorney General of Washington

Incumbent Bob Ferguson and Matt Larkin defeated Brett Rogers and Mike Vaska in the primary for Attorney General of Washington on August 4, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Bob Ferguson (D)	55.8	1,356,225
✔		Matt Larkin (R)	23.7	575,470
		Brett Rogers (R)	12.2	296,843
		Mike Vaska (R)	8.2	199,826
		Other/Write-in votes	0.1	2,372

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 2,430,736
= 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

• Noah Purcell (D)
• M. Lorena Gonzalez (D)

Endorsements

To view Vaska's endorsements in the 2020 election, please click here.

Campaign themes

2020

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Mike Vaska completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Vaska's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I'm the son of a refugee, the first in my family to go to college, and have been a professional lawyer for 30 years at one of the best Northwest firms, leading its consumer protection and antitrust practice. My dad taught me the importance of defending the rule of law and inspired me to give back through public service.

I grew up as part of an immigrant soccer community in Redmond, where my family moved when I was five. My father was a leader in bringing youth soccer to our community, helping to organize and build many of the fields in use today. He came to the United States as a teenager after first being taken from his family by the Nazi's for forced labor, and then escaping from being sent to Stalin's prison camps.

As a young lawyer, I prosecuted drug dealers. At my law firm, I have recovered millions of dollars for consumers, and have won cases in federal court and the State Supreme Court.

I am a leader in the business community and in politics, bringing together diverse coalitions to work on tough challenges like transportation, innovative non-profit news reporting, and helping to elect candidates who put leadership over partisanship. I am so fortunate to have former Governor Dan Evans as my mentor in politics from my early days, showing me how to have success by bringing people together rather than seeking to divide them.

My wife and I raised our two sons in Issaquah, where I was their head soccer coach for a decade. We like to hike and cross country ski.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• As a professional attorney, not a politician, I will defend the rule of law and pursue a non-partisan agenda.
• I will protect our communities by addressing homelessness and related public safety issues, and our communities by tackling our state's high level of cybercrime.
• I will protect your rights as an independent watchdog over state government, preventing overreach and other misuses of power by state officials.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

I learned the importance of defending the rule of law from my father, who came to this country as a refugee after WWII. His family farm was taken by the communists, and he was then taken from his family by the Nazis as a young boy to serve as forced labor. He was a homeless refugee at the end of the war. He taught me that it took both America's compassion and respect for the rule of law to lift up the huddled masses.

I've dedicated my life as an attorney to the rule of law. When I heard that the judges in Seattle's largest courthouse closed the main entrance because of violent attacks on people seeking justice, I decided to do something about it. Since my decision to run for Attorney General, the threat to the rule of law has gotten so much worse. Riots. The CHAZ/CHOP. The loss of a police precinct. And Nigerian cybercriminals committing the biggest heist in history against our state, stealing more than half a billion dollars from our employment security department.

We are losing control.

We can regain control of our communities and our state by having the Attorney General's Office focus on protecting us rather than pursing partisan political ambitions, which is what the current office holder has been doing. His partisanship is making our state less safe while costing us hundreds of millions of dollars. I will defend the rule of law, protect our communities and our state.

The attorney general often sets policy priorities for law enforcement. For example, a state's attorney general may decide to dedicate extra resources to combat human trafficking. Are there certain areas of law enforcement that you would emphasize?

I've talked to so many in our community who don't feel safe walking our streets, and issues related to homelessness are a big part of that problem. Homelessness is in part a humanitarian crisis, and in part a public safety crisis. To meet the challenge, we must continue to rely on the great compassion of our communities, but also ensure respect for the rule of law, so that criminals are no longer allowed to prey on and hide among those experiencing homelessness.

Attorneys general can represent their states in legal conflicts with the federal government. Do you consider this an important part of an attorney general's responsibilities?

There have always been lawsuits between our state and the federal government. Unfortunately, the current Attorney General has filed an unprecedented number of purely partisan lawsuits against the federal government on national issues with little to no connection to our state. To pay for them, he has diverted millions and millions of dollars from groups serving vulnerable communities in our state like low income housing, drug addiction, and mental health organizations. We all have paid for the lawsuits with the loss of focus on state issues, such as public safety and homelessness and cybercrime.

Do you believe that it's beneficial for a state's attorney general to have previous experience in government or politics?

Among the challengers for this office running against the incumbent, I am the only one with any political or government experience in our state. The Attorney General's job is part lawyer, leading one of the largest law firms in the state, and part political leader. I have been a professional lawyer for 30 years at one of the Northwest's top law firms. I have been a business community and political leader for decades helping to solve some of our state's toughest changes.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

I delivered the morning newspaper from the back of my bike, and then worked my way through college at Safeway as a clerk during summers.

What is your favorite book? Why?

Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, which is about Abraham Lincoln's Presidency, because it shows how a big tent approach to politics can change the world and make people's lives better.

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.

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