PC: PHwSF
In the various storylines that have emerged from Hawaii’s general election results, from Governor Green’s huge win over his Republican challenger to the first-ever election of a Green Party Representative, one significant political development in East Honolulu seems to have gone largely unnoticed.
That story is the complete transformation of East Honolulu’s legislative representation from a longtime Republican stronghold to an entirely Democratic delegation. The defeat of appointed Representative Joe Gedeon by Democrat James Wataru in the Hawaiʻi Kai, Portlock, Kalama Valley area marked the last holdout in East Honolulu where Republicans represented.
Considering how long it took for the flip to happen – 22 years – it is little wonder that this didn’t make one of the main storylines emerging from the election. However, this blogger, who at one time worked in the district under a City Councilmember who was Republican, remembers all too well when the change started to occur.
It started, serendipitously, during my first year as a City Council aide, in the 2004 election cycle. At that time, Republican legislative representation formed a nearly continuous political stronghold stretching from Kaimukī eastward through Kāhala, ʻĀina Haina and Hawaiʻi Kai, all the way toward Makapuʻu.
There was even an overlap in Republican representation at the Honolulu City Council, where Charles Djou, an openly identified Republican, represented a district stretching from Waikīkī through East Honolulu to Hawaiʻi Kai.
PC: kaimukihawaii.com
So in 2004, the feeling was that Republican representation was seen as solid in the area when the voters went to the polls. The first Republican to lose their seat in the area was Bertha Kawakami Leong, when she lost the seat representing ʻĀina Haina, Niu Valley, Kuliʻouʻou, to then-upstart politician Lyla Berg.
Sensing that it was a loss, but not something that portended the political future of the district, this blogger remembers hearing that the party needed to just get someone strong to take out Berg in the next cycle. The others should be okay.
2006 saw the return of Gene Ward to his seat in Hawaiʻi Kai, Portlock, Kalama Valley area. Ward succeeded fellow Republican Bud Stonebraker, who decided not to seek reelection that year. So, while Republicans had lost a seat two years earlier, their presence in East Honolulu still appeared strong.
Then 2010 came along. Lyla Berg left her House seat to run for lieutenant governor, creating an open contest. Democrat Mark Hashem held the seat for the blue by defeating Republican Chris Baron by just 463 votes, demonstrating that Berg’s 2004 victory was not necessarily a temporary setback for Republicans.
With Charles Djou’s departure from the City Council in May 2010, and Stanley Chang’s election to that seat later that year, Republican representation had lost ground at both the state and municipal levels. Another significant change would follow in 2012.
That year, Representative Barbara Marumoto, a leading Republican figure in the party and also a highly respected member of the House, announced her retirement. Her seat, which represented Kāhala, Waiʻalae, and portions of Diamond Head, then flipped Democrat with the election of Bert Kobayashi, who beat Republican Darrell Young by a 2-to-1 margin.
At this point, the once-continuous Republican legislative presence across East Honolulu had been reduced to two officeholders: Representative Gene Ward and Senator Sam Slom.
Four years later, in 2016, Slom lost his Senate seat to Democrat Stanley Chang, the former Honolulu City Councilmember who had succeeded Charles Djou in 2010. With Slom’s defeat, Ward became the last remaining Republican legislator representing East Honolulu.
From 2016 to 2025, winning election after election in that period, Representative Ward held his seat with very little opposition and continued to represent the area. In fact, when this blogger wrote about Ward in remembrance of his service after he died in 2025, it was noted that whoever was assigned to replace him in the House would need to bring the same energy and verve that Ward brought to the role for so many years.
But it was also known that whoever replaced Ward, which Joe Gedeon did when he was appointed to the seat following Ward’s retirement and subsequent death in 2025, would face renewed interest from Democrats seeking to finish what had started more than two decades earlier.
And so, it was on Election Day this last Tuesday, November 3, that the work was completed.
At the end of this saga, East Honolulu’s Republican representation did not disappear in a single election. Its House seats changed hands at different times, while its Senate seat remained Republican until 2016. In the individual races, some involved incumbent defeats; others followed retirements. Redistricting also changed the geographic composition of seats along the way, adding another dimension to the political transformation taking place across East Honolulu.
Yet, for now, and until things change again, as they always do in politics, the era of East Oahu being a Republican stronghold, then holdout, is now pau.