Politics Hawaii with Stan Fichtman now takes a look at the various mayoral and county council races across the state, to see who has pulled papers (or filed) for various offices.

And, at least in one race, an observation of a name that hasn’t appeared, probably won’t appear but would be interesting if they did run for office. Read on!

Mayor – Hawaii County

Currently, 9 candidates have expressed interest in running for Hawaii County Mayor, with three of them formally filing for office. Of the nine, one is the incumbent, Mitch Roth, who pulled papers on March 15, and the news reported that he did have a kick-off ceremony for his campaign.

One candidate who did file for the ballot is former Republican Lt. Governor Candidate Seaula Tupai, Jr. A keen watcher of politics in Hawaii will remember that Tupai was on the ballot with Duke Aiona in the 2022 Gubernatorial election. Whether he is just running to keep his name in circulation for the future, or this is the new plan to run hard and potentially beat Roth, remains to be seen.

As the deadline for filing approaches, there was some talk about Kai Kahele potentially returning to politics by running for Hawaii County Mayor. Political observers may recall that he previously ran for Governor in the Democratic primary, relinquishing his Congressional seat in the process and ultimately losing to Josh Green. Some may remember that he did not handle the defeat with grace. However, it remains to be seen if he will indeed file for candidacy, as the deadline is June 4th.

Mayor – Honolulu

The signs are going up all over the island, declaring that the incumbent, Rick Blangiardi, is running to keep the Mayor’s office for four more years.

And he is the only one of the 10 candidates that pulled papers and, upon the deadline passing and him not changing his mind, his name will be on the ballot in August. Of the 9 other candidates that have pulled papers, none of them has the name recognition for Blangiardi. A couple of them on the list, like David Asing and Karl Dicks – they have been on the ballot before, but not successful in their runs.

So the question comes “Is the Honolulu Mayor’s race Blangiardi’s to lose?”, as this pundit has heard in various circles. The answer is that it will remain to be seen. There can always be the last-minute candidate with big-name recognition and money on the barrelhead to make a real run. Cited here: Ed Case when he ran for Congress in 2018 as a late entry and beat out a who’s who of politicians who wanted to level up.

Now onto the Council races

Hawaii County Council

Every council district in Hawaii County has elicited some candidates for each office. Most who are on the list, so far, have just pulled papers but not formally filed. The only seat that is “open” is District 3, which has elicited interest from six individuals.

Two of the names from the six leaped out as notable people in the community. The first is Dennis Onishi, former Councilmember for the district from 2008-2016. He then ran for State Senate against Kai Kahele and lost. Since then, he has served at times as the Governor’s Representative on the Big Island, and now he may be looking to get back his prior job – he has both pulled papers and filed.

Another name is Kelton Chang. He might not be a familiar name in Hawaii politics, but he does have a lot of pull in the Hilo community. For years he ran the Hilo Jaycees Hawaii County Fair every September at the Hilo Fairgrounds. As Branch Manager for Ace Auto Glass in Hilo, he is known by many in the community. He too has also pulled papers and filed for office.

And Chang is sign-waving, with several supporters.

Maui Council

The current set of 9 Councilmembers for Maui Council have all pulled papers expressing interest at least in keeping their positions for another term. While this humble blogger does not have a strong sense of any of the candidates, the ongoing situations on Maui may dictate what happens in that race. As mentioned to this blogger a few days ago by another pundit, many passionate emotions are expressed in the Maui Council these days on the issues stemming from the Lahaina wildfires last year.

The question emerges whether the people of Maui will continue to work with the current set of Councilmembers or will another hui (group) of candidates team up to take out the incumbents due to the current issues, and whether the Council is adequately addressing them.

Honolulu City Council

The Honolulu City Council elects its members in a staggard format. So for this election cycle (2024) Councilmembers from the odd districts, 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 seats are up for election. The next election cycle (2026) will see seats in districts 2, 4, 6 and 8 up.

With that, as of the 4-26-2024 report from the Office of Elections, not all districts have candidates listed in either pulling papers or formally filing. The notable district that is missing a name right now is District 9 – currently held by Councilmember Augusto “Augie” Tulba. But this blogger and most political analysts in Hawaii expect Tulba to seek a second term in the Council.

Going over to District 5, currently held by former Legislator and current Councilmember Calvin Say, the seat is now seen as “open”, with Say potentially not running for re-election. That seat has already elicited interest from veteran State House of Representatives member Scott Nishimoto (District 20). He is joined in the race by another House member Dale Kobayashi, the son of former Councilmember Ann Kobayashi. Three others, along with Kobayashi and Nishimoto, have only pulled papers, but none have formally filed yet.

Incumbents Andrea Tupola (D1), Esther Kiaaina (D3), and Radiant Cordero (D7) have all pulled papers, with Tupola the only one formally filing to run. This will be a set of races that the savvy Hawaii political observer should continue to watch as, no doubt, more names will be added before the deadline.

Kauai Council

Of the seven Kauai Councilmembers currently serving six of them have pulled papers, and of those six, two have formally filed to run for office. The only one that has not yet either pulled or filed that is in the Council now is Ross Kagawa.

As said, though for the Honolulu City Council seats, no doubt more names will be added before the deadline.

Of the 13 names on the list so far, three of them are notable. Mel Rapozo who is the current chair and has been a community leader in Kauai for several years; former Mayor Bernard Carvalho who ran for Lt. Governor in the past, but is still involved in politics; and Fern Holland, a community leader who was recently on the news talking about the issue of flooding at the Coco Palms redevelopment, a front-burner issue in Kauai for many years.

She also ran for Council in 2022.

The deadline for filing the candidate applications is June 4, 2024. It is expected between now and then. The primary election is scheduled for Saturday, August 10.

It is worth noting that Hawaii is a mail-in state, which means that ballots will be sent out by the Office of Elections starting from Tuesday, July 23. This gives voters time to complete and submit their ballots before the election day.

As the first wave of fundraising passes, signs promoting candidates are popping up all over the state, prompting us to check the status of the candidates who have pulled papers or filed for office, as of mid-April 2024. You can find a comprehensive list of all candidates who have pulled papers or have filed at the Office of Elections of the State of Hawaii, which is updated, generally, every Friday.

As notices have slowed since February, PHwSF shares observations on a select list of candidates that have shown interest in congressional and state legislative races.

Before going further, a clarification: There are two steps for a candidate to formally run for office. The first one is in pulling papers, to run. This does not mean that they will run for office, but it does show interest by a person to potentially be a candidate. The second is when they actually “file”. That means they have gone down to the elections office of their island, and formally filed to be on the ballot.

Typically, these are events in a campaign that bring out the supporters and maybe even get the media to interview the newly-filed candidate.

So, in this piece, the candidate’s designation of “pulled papers” or “filed” will be noted.

First, let’s start with the congressional. 

Having run against Brian Schatz the last time, Bob McDermott has pulled papers, this time to run against Mazie Hirono, who also just pulled papers, for the US Senate seat from Hawaii. If he formally files in the next couple of months, let’s see if he does more than have his name on the ballot, like he did when he ran against Brian Schatz for the other Senate congressional seat, two years ago.

Now let’s move on to the state legislative races, starting with the State Senate. 

The only State Senate race that could be spicy is Senate District 22 – generally the entire Waianae Coast from north of Kapolei to Kaena Point. This district was long held by Senator Maile Shimabukuro, who is stepping down and stepping aside from electoral politics. She has endorsed current House member Cedric Gates, from Waianae. 

Gates has pulled papers but has not formally filed them as of this writing.

This district almost flipped to Republicans with Samantha DeCorte coming within 72 votes of taking Maile out in 2022. DeCorte has pulled papers. Her potential opponent, Teri Kia Savainaea, has formally filed for the race.

With the House of Representatives, there is more activity, and more contests to watch, becoming an area that the savvy political pundit should watch. Here are the PHwSF observations. 

– Mark Nakashima pulled papers for his District 1 office in the Big Island. Most likely he will continue to advocate for the legalization of raw milk. So far no one else has pulled or filed papers.

– House District 19 – Ola Souza has pulled papers and may try again to run for District 19 against incumbent Mark Hashem, who has also just pulled papers. But this time Souza may have a Republican competitor named Theresa Texeira, who has also just pulled papers. The last time Souza went up against Hashem, he beat her 68.3% to her 31.7% showing. 

– With Scott Nishimoto running for a seat on the Honolulu City Council – only pulling papers so far, his seat in District 23 may be up for grabs. Already there is a race on with Ikaika Olds pulling papers and putting out signs, out of the gate. Other potential candidates pulling papers include Ian Ross, Chair of the Makiki Neighborhood Board, and Pat McCain former Deputy Director of the Department of Transportation, State of Hawaii. All three are listed as Democrats. Without a candidate filing as a Republican, the primary could be the “winner take all” race for this seat. History suggests that recruiting a Republican to run for this district has been difficult.

– It looks like both incumbent Scott Saiki and challenger Kim Coco Iwamoto are looking to either re-up (for Saiki) or upset (in the case of Iwamoto) for the House 25 seat. Iwamoto got close the last couple of times to Saiki in her challenges. Already both have their signs up in the neighborhood and, with formal filings by both, round 3 may begin (they have just pulled papers as of this writing).

– While both have just pulled papers and not filed, the scuttlebutt in town suggests that this will be what voters will see in July/August on the ballot for District 37,– Tricia La Chica, the incumbent, versus the next generation of a Hawaii political dynasty, Daniel Ken Inouye Jr. An observer of politics recently posed this question about this race, “how do you slay a baby dragon?” With my dumbfounded response, the observer said “Yup, exactly”. Now that does not mean La Chica does not have an answer to this, it could be her ground game may be the key, but she may know that in political circles, this is the level of game she will need to reach to keep her seat. 

– Continuing with a focus on Mililani, the son of a Social Media master – Ryan Ozawa (remember his Lost podcasts?) has pulled papers for House District 38 against Republican incumbent Lauren Cheape Matsumoto, also just pulling papers, so far. The question will be whether Alexander Ozawa will be able to overcome the level of goodwill that Lauren currently has in the district. Or does the district go with a new young face, and flipping parties in the district to Democrat? Another Republican, Michael Kenney has also pulled papers for that race.

– Finally, two years ago, District 39 flipped from Democrat to Republican when Elijah Pierick won against Corey Rosenlee in a close race. However, Pierick actions in office have been controversial, which may affect his re-election. On the other hand, Rosenlee will have to beat Kevin Wilson and Reginald Garcia to win the Democratic ticket. All three have just pulled papers and not filed, yet, so there may be some changes in this race.

The Republican party’s position in the House and Senate was strengthened by a small red wave that flipped seats across Oahu’s west side, including District 39. This upcoming election will be a crucial test to see if the Republicans can maintain, or even increase, their stronghold against the Democrats.

One key to either the Senate or House races will be who gets the real money, from rich backers to both win their primaries and then their general contests. The funds will be out there if the list of unopposed candidates’ stay’s long.

As to the rest of the races, there are, at publication time, about 23 candidates that have either pulled papers or formally filed, with no opponents. The deadline for filing the candidate applications is June 4, 2024. It is expected between now and then, that should change. However, if no challengers emerge, the solo candidate will automatically win in the primary election, scheduled for Saturday, August 10. 

It is worth noting that Hawaii is a mail-in state, which means that ballots will be sent out by the Office of Elections starting from Tuesday, July 23. This gives voters time to complete and submit their ballots before the election day.

As a reader of this blog, one may have noticed that the post which went up on the 13^th of April had been taken down the next day. If you were one of the select people I reached out to and sent a link to, you would have gotten a note from me that said that I pulled the article down.

The article was entitled “A first look at ‘24”. Based on the record at the State of Hawaii Office of Elections, it was about the initial notices by candidates that may potentially run for elected office in Hawaii.

About 24 hours after I posted the piece, I got a note from a fellow pundit whom I respect, saying that the piece was full of errors, highlighting a few of them as factual errors among other errors. Choosing not to fix it online I took it down

And indeed, it was full of errors. Some of it had to do with the categorization of the candidate, whether they have “pulled papers” or “filed” to be on the ballot. I didn’t delineate that in the first piece. Secondly, I misassigned a candidate from one race to another.

And the errors went on and on.

But instead of giving up on the piece, I felt its important enough to salvage. So, over the last 2 days, I have been rebuilding it, making sure it’s factual and, this time, having another pundit read it over just to be sure I am correct.

To those who took the time to let me know of the errors thank you. To those who read over my drafts and gave me ideas to make it even better, I thank you too. The effort to “get it right” is always challenging, especially with data-rich pieces like this. This one was no exception, and even more due to the volume of data I needed to get right.

But for my first effort, I will be straight with you. – I wrote a sloppy piece that should have never seen the light of “e-day” (when it gets published on the website). And I am happy that I got called out, forcing me to take it down.

The piece is now re-written and will be published on the website tomorrow night, Wednesday, the 17^th of April. Should there be more factual errors, please let me know through the response page on the website.

As for the points of view I have made on races, those will stay. After all, it is a political column which I call as I see it. I’ll also write about other races such as specific county council and mayoral races in my next piece around the 27^th of April. And then I’ll do it all again after the filing deadline in June, to see who will be on the ballots.

But I’ll try not to be sloppy, remembering the lessons I learned when I worked at a newspaper (Pacific Business News), and regain your trust that what I present is factually correct.