The “Anybody But Progressives” (ABP) faction on Maui celebrated mightily this weekend. If not for a last-minute shift in the Haiku-Makawao-Paia council race, the primarily election would have represented a brutal beat-down of progressive candidates throughout the county council and mayoral races.
There has been great reporting by local media on all the races that includes numbers and candidate comments. I am not going to duplicate that information. The Maui News has good precinct analysis here and earlier results, here and here. Maui Now did an excellent job posting instant results here, here, and here and, and Civil Beat weighed in with good details as well.
Nara Boone barely edged past Dave DeLeon into contender position for the Haiku-Makawao-Paia seat currently held by failed mayoral candidate Mike Molina. Progressive Carol Lee Kamekona came in third in the Kahului race, which now features ABP’ers Tasha Kama and Buddy Nobriega in contender positions. Kelly King-backed Robin Knox made it through the South Maui race for King’s council seat, but trails Tom Cook.
It’s barely worth mentioning the Upcountry council race, as progressive-favored Jordan Hocker made it through, but with only 7,517 votes to Yuki Lei Sugimura’s 20,360. That’s as of the third voting report issued by the Hawaii Election Commission. The final summary has yet to be issued.
What happened to Kelly King?
Jordan Hocker’s vote count was still higher than that of mayoral contender Kelly King, who progressives hoped would move on to the November 8th general election. However, King’s third place finish was not as much of a surprise as the anemic number of votes she garnered. King received 6,350 votes for mayor, a distant third to Mayor Michael Victorino, who drew 11,747 votes and Richard Bissen’s frontrunning 13,407 votes.
King’s number is shocking. In her November, 2020 County Council race, she received 34,155 votes, the second highest of the contested races. First place belonged to Michael Molina, who drew 41,233 votes in 2020 for his council seat (more than the 39,493 votes cast in the entire 2022 Maui primary). This year, he finished the mayoral primary in fifth place, with only 2,068 votes.
King was a great candidate, smart and possibly more well-versed on the issues than either Victorino or Bissen. She received warm praise from colleagues such as Maui County Council chair Alice Lee. Lee doesn’t always vote the same way as King, but spoke up on her value as a candidate during Akaku community television’s election returns program on Saturday night.
King’s results may not have as much to do with her as a candidate, as with the timing of her mayoral run.
The Change-Up Problem
The progressives had a problem with the mayor’s race soon after it commenced. Mike Molina signaled his intention to run and received their support. However, Molina’s fundraising was abysmal. Contenders Bissen and Victorino vacuumed up campaign donations ($446,264 and $369,794, respectively, as of July 29th). By late spring, Molina had raised only about $7,000 and his campaigning was perceived as lackluster. Island progressive leaders panicked.
They approached King, who already had filed to run for the District 11 state house seat, and begged her to throw her hat in the ring. She did, filing just under the June 7th deadline. By the time she got her campaign up and running, she had less than two months to go before the primary and was only able to raise about $60,000. Bissen and Victorino had been campaigning for five months at that point. And, to top it all off, King contracted Covid at the end of July, which further restricted her facetime with potential supporters.
King’s entrance blind-sided Molina. Progressives felt that his smart move would be to drop out of the mayor’s race and run again for his council seat. However, Molina stubbornly resisted calls to do so and campaigned valiantly, but now did so without progressive support. Progressives put King on the ‘Ohana Coalition campaign cards (which weren’t mailed to households, but advertised elsewhere) and ignored Molina.
Strategic mistake?
Did that late change hurt? Molina supporters were irritated, and some stayed with their candidate. The dual progressive mayoral run threatened to split votes and it did. However, even adding together King’s and Molina’s final numbers totals only 8,418 votes, not enough to come close to edging past Victorino.
Were voters angry at King and Molina? Were they confused? Or, were they simply too busy with Covid, unaffordable housing, and soaring inflation to pay attention? We’ll probably never know. The whole affair started because progressives were afraid of a Bissen-Victorino race in November, which is now exactly what they have.
Bright Spot: New Faces
Instead of the same old names and faces, it was great to see a new generation of candidates make it to the November ballot.
First-timers Nohe U’u-Hodgins, Buddy Nobriega, Mahina Poepoe, Nara Boone, and Jordan Hocker are refreshing additions to Maui’s somewhat stale political circles. Poepoe is the progressives’ one bright spot, shooting past incumbent Linda Clark as the Democratic candidate for the District 13 seat in the state House of Representatives. (That progressives Terez Amato and Elle Cochran beat their opponents for the Democratic state house seat candidacies in Districts 11 and 14, respectively, was widely predicted.) Nobriega came close to edging out Tasha Kama in votes for the Kahului council seat, which is surprising, given Kama’s incumbent status and similar views.
U’u-Hodgins is the clear front-runner in the Haiku-Makawao-Paia council race, with 11,922 votes to Boone’s 7,608 votes. U’u-Hodgins’ numbers are likely to increase significantly in the general election, as she shares similar views with DeLeon, whose 7,258 votes will surely shift to her. Voters seem interested in bringing new faces to the table, whatever their political persuasions, and these candidates fit the bill.
Recalculating the Mayor’s Race
While we’re on the subject of vote-shifting, where are the 13,378 votes cast for mayoral candidates other than Bissen and Victorino likely to go? Not to Victorino, I surmise, as defeating him was the point of these candidates’ runs in the first place. Will we see a spate of Bissen endorsements coming from them? I expect, among the larger vote getters such as King and Molina, that enlisting their support might come with some strings attached. I doubt there will be much movement in that respect for a while. The losers are still licking their wounds.
In the meantime, Bissen, armed with plenty of money and a brilliantly run campaign, has vaulted from relative obscurity to political frontrunner in under a year. Now, as he faces a very tough race against Victorino, he needs to alter his strategy. Every time Bissen is asked why he’s running, he names his grandchildren. That may have worked in the primary, but it’s time to help the voters understand what will make Mayor Bissen different from Mayor Victorino. As a former judge, Bissen seems at times a bit hampered by his distanced objectivity. It’s not necessary to go negative, but distinctions must be drawn.
Victorino will continue as he has for the past few months, issuing a steady stream of press releases announcing a Santa’s bag of gifts for various constituencies. His announcement of the acquisition of 45-acres of Alexander & Baldwin properties on the day before the election took the cake. The deal mainly involves large swaths of Baldwin Beach, which was an initiative launched by his mayoral opponent Mike Molina in 2021. Victorino sat on the Baldwin Beach proposal for so many months that The Maui News finally called him on it. I guess it’s just coincidence that he reached a deal with A&B, one of his most loyal donors, just days before the primary.
Victorino is a savvy politician, and it will take more than grandchildren’s names if Bissen wants to outmaneuver him for a win.
The “Maui Problem”
Did Maui distinguish itself on a statewide level in this primary? No. While we are known far and wide as the “Valley Isle,” when it comes to Hawaii politics, we’re better known as “Whack Job World.” There weren’t significant Election Day lines at walk-in voting centers anywhere else in the state. Here, our single walk-in voting location in Wailuku was overrun. Fights broke out. People yelled about filling out paperwork. The police were called. Election results statewide were significantly delayed because many of our voters waited until the very last minute to show up. And when that was all said and done, we still had the lowest voter turnout level in the state.
I guess if you can’t be influential, it helps to be eccentric. Poor planning and dumb behavior is a different matter altogether.
Here in the People’s Republic of South Minneapolis, the forces of moderation almost picked off a member of the Squad – Congresswoman Omar – in a 50-48 squeaker. This was a better showing than the previous election.
I the only way we Dems are going to avoid a blow-out in the midterms is to tack to the center – and there’s a track record to run on at the federal level – and hammer the hell out of the GOP on abortion, election denial and the fat Florida man who used to be on Twitter. If his ego compels him to declare for 2024 before the midterms, we might put the House back in play.
Great analysis. The pandemic has made a distinct impact perhaps most profoundly in the apathy department.
Great article. Saw Mike Molina this morning hugging Richard Bissen at Bissen’s thank you sign waiving event at the Hana Highway corner. It appears Molina licked his wounds quite quickly.
Bissen or Victorino. There is no choice. I am leaving my ballot blank on that contest. I hope this “none of the above” vote will tell the candidates how many people don’t want them in office.
Yes, but we were in the pandemic 2 years ago, and we didn’t have this kind of result. Hard to know what happened. But a mailing and advertising will be necessary for the General Election. Hard to imagine what will motivate people to vote in November where there is less of a choice. The vast majority of voters couldn’t even be bothered to fill out the ballot that was mailed to them. They didn’t even have to go to the polls. Maybe life on Maui is too good for them so they don’t care, or they have given up.
Just wanted to say this is a very well-done article. Kudos to the reporter.
The results were directly tied to the donations.
Unfortunately for Maui , the top two Mayoral candidates have no interest in investigating the Maui County Planning Department. The Maui county planning department has been issuing zoning exemptions and vacation rental licenses on agricultural and residential land. Meanwhile they bully resident homeowners about a building permit for an outdoor shower head. People’s testimony linking Kickbacks and payoffs to county or State office emiyees needs to be documented, investigated and stopped. Kelly King has started the process.
Thank you Mrs King. 🌺
Deborah, your article is on point well done.
Crazy voting results, lots of complaining about this current administration from before the pandemic and still ongoing. So I was shocked to see how this primary results turned out. Wasn’t even close to my expectations, the results seem odd.
Tack. Tack!