State Rep. Beth Fukumoto Chang, leader of the House Republican caucus, looks ahead to next week’s Hawaii presidential caucus and is worried.

Fukumoto Chang is a smart, young Republican who knows how to win elections in Democratic Hawaii, and she sees a victory by Donald Trump as a GOP disaster.

Today is Super Tuesday for political parties across the mainland as a dozen states and territories hold preference polls or caucuses. Hawaii’s GOP caucus is next Tuesday.

Trump could do well on both days.

“The direction the primary seems to be going is much further to the right than I would like to see,” said Fukumoto Chang, who is a former state GOP chairwoman.

Part of the local GOP’s problem is that Trump’s extremism is just wrong in Hawaii and part of it, she said, is because the national GOP has for years allowed the hate speech of candidates like Trump.

“The establishment in the GOP countenanced these very extreme ideas so that behind the scenes, the GOP was building this base of people and now it seems uncontrollable,” Fukumoto Chang said in an interview.

Today’s voting could put Trump so far ahead that challenges by the other GOP candidates could be just an afterthought by March 8.

“Donald Trump could easily win the Hawaii Caucus and I don’t think he is carrying a message that will win voters in the November general election,” Fukumoto Chang said.

Fritz Rohlfing, the Hawaii GOP chairman, said he thinks Trump will do well, but is not sure he will win next week’s Hawaii contest.

When asked if Trump’s divisive attacks make the GOP too toxic to survive the fall elections, Rohlfing said “no.”

“I don’t think the collapse of the party is imminent. There are always challenges to unifying a party after the primaries,” Rohlfing said.

Still, for local Republicans, who are already a tiny minority, any further political success for the New York billionaire is just a nightmare.

Fukumoto Chang’s own observation is that Hawaii’s voters will go for a candidate they like and trust before they consider the party.

“Our voters just want us to be able to work together and create solutions, that is all what Hawaii people want. They don’t want to hear a whole lot of speeches,” she said.

In fact, Republicans in Hawaii have to recognize that they are winning despite the GOP brand, not because of it.

“If you are a Republican in Hawaii and you are winning, it is because your district likes you and because you are working hard; it is not because you are a Republican,” Fukumoto Chang said.

If Trump wins the nomination, it is questionable how any amount of hard work will translate into local GOP victories in November.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.