Maui County Election News: Endorsements, Projections, Suggestions

As Election Season 2022 lurches to a conclusion—with ballots arriving any day–campaign noise has become almost deafening. In recent days, my household has been buried in an avalanche of election cards, robo-calls, and radio ads. My inbox is so full of emails with complaints about the actions of this or that candidate that I barely want to look. November 8th can’t come soon enough.

In the meantime, there was one political announcement this week that cut through the clutter like a scalpel, and that was Maui County Councilmember Kelly King’s endorsement of Richard Bissen for mayor. King and Bissen appeared at a joint press conference Tuesday, and the resulting coverage by the Maui News’ Melissa Tanji and Maui Now’s Wendy Osher solidly reported the event. [Update: King’s endorsement was followed Saturday by Bissen endorsements from two notable Hawaiians: progressive activist Alika Atay and cultural practitioner Ke’eaumoku Kapu].

King, a staunch progressive, finished third in the August mayoral primary with 6,389 votes. That left Richard Bissen, the frontrunner with 13,498 votes, facing Maui County’s incumbent mayor Michael Victorino, who placed second with 11,794 votes. On Tuesday, King placed herself firmly on Team Bissen, emphasizing that it was a personal decision and not part of some political quid pro quo between her and the retired judge.

“So why endorse at all?” I asked her Wednesday. “Why not just sit out the election?”

King replied that she’d received “dozens of phone calls” from progressives asking her for advice. “They wanted to know who they should vote for now. Because nobody wanted to vote for either of them.”

King felt she had “a responsibility to make a call on who I think is going to be better for the future of Maui County. I know how horrible the last four years were, with little collaboration between the mayor and the council.”

Bissen “listened”

Bissen and Victorino both come from the same side of the political spectrum (that is to say, not progressive), and are drawing lots of the same support from the business community. Like practically every other candidate, they want affordable housing, accessible water, and help for the homeless. They love keiki and kupuna. Their suggestions for addressing the issue of over-tourism seem equally uninspired. Finding any daylight between the two has been difficult.

But King said that after several meetings with Bissen, she found clear differences between the candidates.

“I was very impressed with Rick. It was a shock to me that I could have an open, honest, respectful discussion, because I’ve never had that kind of discussion with Mike Victorino. He’s always had an overbearing, intimidating attitude. There was never any feeling that he ever really heard what I had to say. When I talked about some of the questions that I had asked the administration, [Bissen] sat back and listened.”

Am I surprised that King endorsed Bissen over Victorino? Hell no. Victorino has been publicly hostile toward King throughout his administration, starting with his refusal to listen to the Council’s request (made while King was Council Chair) that he settle the Lahaina injection wells lawsuit. (Instead, the mayor spent millions taking the issue to the Supreme Court, where the county lost). He attacked King for holding a forum on COVID-19 during the pandemic. He told a gathering of the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association earlier this year that the council would be better off by changing “some of the members of the council and help us get some reasonable people elected.”

Victorino, too, has received support from progressives. Community activist Kai Nishiki has been vocal in her support of the mayor, and Councilmember Keani Rawlins-Fernandez has offered more discreet help, appearing in numerous photos with Victorino during the campaign season.

Political wags suggest that the differing mayoral choices by King and Rawlins-Fernandez speak to future political ambitions. By supporting Victorino for his final four-year term, Rawlins-Fernandez wouldn’t have to wait a potential eight years to make a mayoral run, and it’s possible King has an eye on another mayoral attempt in the future as well.

Do Endorsements Matter?

The Maui News and Maui Now reports also included comments from University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Colin Moore, who’s a media favorite when it comes to political analysis. Moore said King’s endorsement pretty much guarantees a Bissen win.

I wasn’t so sure. Victorino has performed well in six mayoral forums and debates during the past two weeks. In a phone call with Moore Wednesday, I said my political Spidey-sense (since we have no official polling) felt that the race had tightened considerably. He disagreed.

“I have to question whether or not that’s really true,” he said. “The fundamentals point to an easy Bissen win.”

Moore said Bissen’s primary win, coupled with important “mainstream labor” endorsements, are big considerations. The powerful Hawaii Carpenter’s Union (and its mighty Be Change Now super-PAC) and the 43,000-member Hawaii Government Employees Association (HGEA) are “important endorsements that really deliver votes,” Moore said. “When those two unions come together, their candidate almost never loses.”

He said primary election vote tallies also work against Victorino: “He came in second in the primary and most of those other votes that didn’t go for him are going to go to Bissen,” Moore said. “Victorino’s the incumbent. People know who he is. If they’ve already formed an opinion about him and decided to vote for somebody else, they’re probably not going to [change] in the general election, unless he’s running against someone they dislike more,” he explained. “Rick Bissen has presented himself as a friend to everyone; the candidate who’s above the drama.”

Moore felt King’s endorsement was significant in delivering progressive votes to Bissen. “People who voted for King and Michael Molina (who placed fifth with 2,079 votes) are not going to vote for Victorino. So how does the mayor navigate a path to victory that’s even close if you assume that the people who voted for Bissen in the primary are going to vote for him again?”

When I suggested that many progressives say they will leave the mayor’s race blank on their ballots, Moore was skeptical. “Progressives are pretty active. I think they’re going to have a hard time just leaving that ballot space totally blank.”

Do Your Homework and Vote

Finally, with this column, I am going dark on further election coverage until after November 8th. If you remain undecided, there are reams of information available on all candidates. The candidates have been endlessly interviewed by various community and trade organizations. A couple of my recent favorites are Akaku Community Media’s mayoral debate at Seabury Hall, led by Maui-based journalists (full disclosure, I helped organize this debate) and the Kula Community Association’s candidate forum in which all candidates for the most hotly contested mayoral and council races appeared. That is, with two exceptions that I must bring up for the sheer financial hubris involved. Candidates Nohe U’u-Hodgins (Makawao-Haiku-Paia) and Buddy Nobriga (Kahului) were no-shows at the October 12 event taping because they were attending a fundraiser for their campaigns on Oahu.

That the two of the most heavily funded candidates in the entire Maui County Council races saw the need to raise even more money from off-island donors just weeks before the election is more than perplexing. That they would do so instead of presenting their views to potential voters at a widely broadcast public forum doesn’t bode well for their attitudes toward community engagement if elected. South Maui district council candidate Tom Cook was also supposed to attend the Oahu fundraiser, but wisely changed his mind. His appearance with opponent Robin Knox was one of the standouts of the Kula Community Association forum, as viewers got a clear idea of where each candidate stood on a number of issues.

For pure entertainment value, the three-way Q and A with Westside state legislature candidates Elle Cochran, Leonard Junya Nakoa and Kelly Armstrong during the West Maui Taxpayers Forum (1 hr. 44 minutes into the broadcast) is a welcome palate cleanser. Otherwise, it was a pretty excruciating four-and-a-half-hour event.

The Maui News has provided great ongoing candidate and issue coverage, and Honolulu Civil Beat has been publishing excellent reports on each of the 13 proposed charter amendments. Civil Beat will hold an addition charter amendment forum on Friday Oct 21 at the UH Maui College campus. And if you barely understand the voting process, check out Maui Times’ voting guide (available at various locations), which offers an overview of Maui County’s political system, as well as thumbnail sketches of the candidates and the issues.

Whether it’s candidates or charter amendments, whoever or whatever you support–just vote!