Is it a primary of ideas, or a support audit

Earlier this month, June 2026, the filing deadline for candidates running for political office closed. And with all the excitement of hearing who made the fight ticket at a boxing match, it went right down to the end to see who would be running for each office.

With all the information out there on the candidates, this blogger noted that there seem to be many races in the primary with both incumbents and challengers. In an analysis of the final filing records, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of all contests involve an incumbent facing at least one challenger, suggesting voters will have numerous opportunities to evaluate elected officials before the general election.

Digging deeper into the filing records reveals that most of Hawaiʻi’s primary-election competition is occurring within the Democratic Party itself. Approximately 80 percent of all contested partisan primaries are Democratic contests, while Republicans account for the remaining 20 percent. In other words, much of the political debate this election cycle is taking place within the state’s dominant party rather than between parties.

All of the races at the county level, as well as the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) are non-partisan.

However, regardless of party, office, or geography, one statistic stands out: in 62 of the 97 contests on the ballot this year, an incumbent will face at least one challenger from the electorate.

The question that emerges from all this is not whether voters have choices. The question is what those choices are actually measuring.

Ideally, the desire to serve the public at an elected office level could be be one answer. In fact, that desire is the basis of what our democracy stands for – that of an everyday person taking a chance and putting their name in for office, and may the best candidate win.

However, being that Hawaiʻi has both a lopsided partisan landscape – with the stateʻs Democratic Party hold being lock-tight – the nature of why one runs for office, especially against an incumbent, changes a bit.

Before going into a theory as to why, a caveat – this blogger recognizes that running for office is a serious decision that takes a lot of considerations and willingness to sacrifice to win. So this blog tips its hat to all the incumbents, challengers, or even those who are not facing a primary contest, on their desire to run and serve.

With that, one line of thought is that any candidate running against an incumbent becomes part of a political stress test, allowing voters to measure the continued strength of the officeholder and the level of support they still command within the electorate.

So, for instance, lets take the Lieutenant Governorʻs race for the Democratic nomination. That race is between House Representative Della Au Belatti and Kauaʻi Mayor Derek Kawakami.

Regardless of who wins that race in August, there will be those who will look at the voter percentage to see just how strong the winner is in that race. So, for instance, depending on the result, the winner could be seen as strong (winning with a margin of 70% to 30%) or not-as-strong if they win by, say, 55%.

That percentage is a tell of several things, including candidate desirability going into the General election, whether the candidateʻs message during the campaign was welcome or not, or even the general nature of the candidate themselves is more desirable, or not.

Only the final result, with interpretation by pundits like this blogger, will provide a better picture going into the general.

With that, a couple of races stand out to this blogger on how the incumbent will fare against the challenger. One is a state House race, and one is a Hawaiʻi County Council race.

The first one is for House of Representatives seat 44 – a large district spanning from West Kapolei just below Makakilo to Māʻili on the Waiʻanae Coast. The current Representative and incumbent is Darius Kila. One thing that Darius has done over the time he has been an elected official is to highlight his district in a statewide way, getting on television and being someone the press goes to for comment on legislation – in some ways much more open than other legislators.

The question that follows the thesis of this piece is whether Kila has accumulated enough goodwill in District 44 through the manner in which he has represented the community, or whether the return of a former Representative to the race signals that some voters remain open to a different choice.

The second race is that of a Hawaiʻi County Council, District 3, in which Dennis “Fresh” Onishi is facing a set of three challengers – all of whom have run against Onishi in the last primary election in 2024. This race more aligns with the theory because it demonstrates that even at the county level, incumbents are not simply being reelected without opposition. The existence of three challengers means voters will have an opportunity to express satisfaction—or dissatisfaction—with the incumbent’s performance.

And for both Onishi and Kila, along with all other challenged incumbents, lies in whether they win, and by how much. Of course, if they lose, the political analysis of the area goes into higher gear as to what is changing in the district, what the voters are really feeling now, and why they voted for change.  

A good example of this came when House Speaker Scott Saiki was defeated by (now Representative) Kim Coco Iwamoto two years ago. Almost immediately, attention shifted from who won the race to why the result occurred and what it revealed about the electorate that produced it.

Come August 8, and the evaluation of the votes on August 9, voters will provide the answers. Some incumbents will validate their standing with decisive victories. Others may discover that support they once assumed was secure has become less certain. Either way, beyond the campaign signs, endorsements, and advertisements, the primary election may serve another purpose altogether.

And one of the biggest tells from this primary election cycle is that it may not simply be a contest of ideas, but a voter-driven audit of whether elected officials still retain the confidence of the people they were chosen to represent.