Across the board, Hawaii’s legislative races are becoming less competitive.
Fewer people are running for office and dramatically fewer incumbents are being tossed out.
A fast look at the latest list of candidates either taking out nomination papers or filing papers shows that a staggering 22 state House races have only one candidate.
That means that right now 43 percent of the state House races have no opposition. That’s not a lessening of competition, that is a slaughter.
A study by Ballotpedia, an online political almanac, shows that “the percentage of uncontested Hawaii state Senate elections increased from 9.1 percent in 1968 to 30.8 percent in 2014.”
Ballotpedia devised a three-part measure of a state’s electoral competitiveness that included the percentage of open seats, the percentage of primary contests and the percentage of candidates facing major party opposition in the general election.
On a national level the competitive index has gone from 31.9 to 24.8 in the last three election cycles. The Hawaii competitiveness index for 2014 was 38.
Fritz Rohlfing, GOP Hawaii chairman, said the minority party is trying to support candidates who have a chance of winning.
“We are focusing our efforts on races we believe we have a shot of winning. We have some very good candidates in races that they have an excellent chance,” Rohlfing said in an interview.
The local GOP has been criticized for not putting a candidate in every race, but Rohlfing said that is not the way to win.
“I am opposed to people running just to put their name on the ballot. The way we become a significant opposition party is when we run and win,” Rohlfing said.
With just seven Republicans in the 51-member House and one GOP member of the Senate, Rohlfing has a lot of room to grow his GOP bench.
One place he could look is way across the aisle, to the Hawaii Libertarian Party.
Although Libertarians have never won a race in Hawaii, there are eight Libertarian candidates for Senate races, and only four GOP candidates interested in the Senate.
“Libertarians seem to be very active and motivated,” said Rohlfing, who added that he thinks the “less government” philosophy of Libertarians meshes with GOP thinking.
“I would suggest to them they ought to consider running as Republicans. I think they would have a better chance,” Rohlfing said.
Or they could take the suggestion of Jon Stewart, the former “Daily Show” host who was recently interviewed by David Axelrod at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. He advised young people interested in getting into politics:
“Get into it, and don’t get it on you,” he said.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
