Well, Hawaii’s primary election has come and gone. And the Democratic primaries were where the action was.
The official results are available on the Office of Elections website, and Civil Beat has good primary election coverage of all the major races this morning (freely available without a paywall),
I haven’t dug into the data yet, but keyed on a few races.
The biggest losers were the big money political action committees and Super PACs, from the carpenters union’s “Be Change Now” Super Pac that spend millions in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to torpedo Sylvia Luke’s campaign for lieutenant governor in the Democratic primary, while favoring former Honolulu City Council chairman Ikaika Anderson, to the string of mainland dark money outfits that tried to boost Pat Branco in Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district by viciously attacking his Democratic opponent, former state senator Jill Tokuda.
Luke prevailed by a comfortable margin, with 34.8% of the vote, compared to Anderson’s 25.4%. Keith Amemiya ran third, with 21.7%. None of the other three LG candidates were in double figures statewide.
And Tokuda had more than a 2-1 lead over Branco, 49.8% to Branco’s 20.9%.
In the governor’s race, U.S. Representative Kai Kahele placed a distant third, with just 13.3% of the vote, well behind Vicky Cayetano, who finishd with 20.6%. Not surprisingly, Lt. Gov. Josh Green pulled 61.5%, validating early poll results that showed him well out in front of the field.
It looks like Green led in every county, including Kahele’s Big Island base.
Kahele’s late entry into the gubernatorial race, after he largely abandoned the seat in Congress he won just two years ago, appeared to shake up the race, but in the end he failed to gain traction as a candidate.
In a few other closely watched races, Sen. Lorraine Inouye (53.2%) crushed Sen. Laura Acasio (27.4%) in the 1st Senatorial District after reapportionment dropped the two incumbents into the same district.
House Speaker Scott Saiki appears to have survived another strong challenge by Kim Coco Iwamoto by just over 200 votes out of over 5,000 cast.
Molokai activist Walter Ritte failed in his effort to oust incumbent Senator Lynn Decoite, who drew 58.7% to Ritte’s 26.5% in the 7th Senatorial District race.
Longtime legislator Roy Takumi was easily beaten by Rep. Gregg Takayama (62.3% to 31%) after reapportionment tossed the incumbents into a runoff.
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Mahalo nui Ian – you did a great great wrap-up for the Primary.
I have a qiestion about Pat Branco and the dark money behind him….. when you have time – I would really like to know more about where he and his vicious attack & covert support came from!
It was so strange that Kahele wouldn’t even come outside on election night. It looked pathetic when the poor HNN reporter was standing outside the gate of a dark Big Island house to do a live broadcast as the results came in. Other losers at least had parties to thank their supporters, made themselves available, and were generally diplomatic, especially Cayetano, who had lots of financial skin in the game and got severely trounced yet came across as a mature adult who was willing to gracefully accept reality and move on with her head held high.
His options for future politics, may point the way of Harvey Tajiri. Change Party, He and Brenton Awa are similar in age.
Voter had to educate self by digging under the usual disruptive media narrative. Kai would’ve been best for badly needed system and trajectory change, but to know that would’ve taken some desire to look beyond Green.
Feels like voter turnout was low? No stats yet on Elections Office site.
Same, sad turn out for Non-Presidential year. Despite ballots being mailed to every voter. Big Island and Oahu, maintained at slightly over 40%, but Kauai and Maui seem disenfranchised in the 21-27% percent range.
This system is not working, it’s boring, return to multi member districts. More races, more choices. The little guys who follow Campaign Spending Guidelines are doomed.
I agree on the idea of bringing back multi-member districts. More races, more interest.
I’m delighted that Brendon Lee has been canceled off the OHA board. I’m also delighted that the belligerent bully Zuri Aki did not make the cut to go to the final election for three at-large seats. Those two were quite a pair! Lee was head of the OHA-sponsored month-long “Na’i Aupuni” Constitutional Convention of February 2016 which produced an outrageously racist Constitution for a fantasy Nation of Hawaii. And Zuri Aki was the self-proclaimed principal writer of that Constitution, who also wrote a huge number of hate-filled racist articles and comments on Honolulu Civil Beat online newspaper. Then later, when Lee got elected to the OHA board, Aki became his chief staff assistant. Now they can both paddle their canoes off into the sunset.
Frustrating that the coverage focused so much on “race drama” like how much money the candidates raised and tit for tat campaigning. I wish they would run on their values, ideas and vision for Hawaii. I don’t see that in these candidates. They are as appealing as last week’s fish.
It was so strange to see dour former governor Neil Abercrombie interviewed at the Democrats’ morning-after unity breakfast and downplay the vicious negative campaigning that we saw in this election. Rather than denounce the terrible PAC ads and the special interest money that financed them, he instead pointed to negative campaigning during some early American presidential elections to suggest that things here weren’t really so bad and we should just get over it. While it may be true that Andrew Jackson faced some nasty opposition during his era, that’s utterly beside the point. It’s disturbing that Abercrombie doesn’t seem to care that big money is flushing Hawaii politics into the gutter, and that he can’t be bothered to at least feign mild concern if not staunch disapproval. Then again, perhaps we should be grateful that he’s finally becoming more straightforward with the public in his golden years.
Slight correction: Abercrombie’s comments were made in an interview on election night, which was woven into a segment that began with the unity breakfast.
Isn’t Green’s base also the Big Island since he represented them in the state house and senate for 8 years?
Kinda weird that legendary Democrat heavyweight and kingmaker Dan Inouye’s former deputy chief of staff and press secretary covered the Democratic Party’s Unity Breakfast in reporter’s hat for the Star-Advertiser. Incest much? Should we be surprised or even care? Asking for a friend…
I was leaning toward Anderson despite the sleazy PAC ads attacking his opponent Luke, but when his campaign ran ads with the ever-excruciating Ann Kobayashi singing his praises, the camel’s back just snapped.