Today’s first exercise is predicting the outcome of the November general election.
Not for all the winners, but I can tell you the names of one out of five members of the 2013 state Legislature.
You can, too. All that is required is a reading of the list of candidates who filed for office this week.
For the campaigns to fill the 76 legislative seats, 16 have only one candidate.
So already elected to the state House are 11 incumbents, including Republican Reps. Cynthia Thielen and Gene Ward.
Strolling around next year’s state Senate will be at least five members of this year’s Senate, because after this week’s filing deadline, they had no opposition.
Of course, each will need at least one vote in the Aug. 11 primary election, but after that, they are in. According to state law, the names of those elected in the primary are considered elected and their names will not appear on the general election.
This electoral shrug was not confined to just races with no opponents, because there was a general lack of competition across the board.
In the House, 16 races have no general election opposition. In other words, the race is between two or more Democrats; there is no Republican opponent. Over in the Senate, there are eight contests with primary-only races.
All totaled, there were 292 state and local candidates filing for office, according to the state Campaign Spending Commission.
According to Ballotpedia, an online almanac of state politics across the country, election experts are hoping for a more competitive race than in previous years in Hawaii.
"Hawaii, although leading the country for most competitive election states in 2010, has in past years seen a lack of contested races. This trend allows the incumbent to sail through the primary and general election, often times without an opponent," said Tyler King, who is an editor of the nonpartisan website.
Two years ago, only one state senator had a free ride and just five House members had no opposition.
Across the country, 2010 was not a year of flowing political juices. Ballotpedia calculated that most races around the nation were not competitive.
"One-third of all state legislators run unopposed in the general election. Overall, 57 percent of state legislators and 49 percent of U.S. congressmen won their elections with more than a 30 point margin of victory," according to Ballotpedia.
This political ennui will be more of a problem for just those hoping to see more legislative horse races.
The political cliche is "You can’t beat somebody with nobody." Perhaps the corollary to that is, "If you don’t have somebody to run, who cares?"
Although there will be candidates in the general election, in 23 House primary races and 15 Senate primary races, there will be only one candidate.
So if you go to the polls because you want to make sure your uncle wins his race, or you want to make sure that good-for-nothing senator doesn’t get re-elected, if there is no primary race, there may be no motivation for you to vote.
Hawaii already is near the bottom on voter turnout, but in presidential elections we barely even make a mark. In 2004, just fewer than 40 percent of those registered voted. In 2008 it was 36 percent. In comparison, in the 2010 primary, turnout was 42 percent.
This means that if your campaign strategy relies on a big voter turnout in August, it is time to rethink it, because Hawaii voters are likely to be at the beach and not the polls.
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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
