The marquee contest this primary election is U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa’s bid to unseat Gov. David Ige — a challenge that Hanabusa says is all about leadership.

Hanabusa has pressed Ige to explain the lapses that led to the infamous Jan. 13 ballistic missile alert, which caused a public panic, including the 38-minute delay by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency in notifying the public that it was a false alarm.

The false alert was a stark illustration of Hanabusa’s argument that the state has lacked leadership under Ige, and she used a televised Hawaii News Now debate to dramatically confront the governor: “What were you doing for 38 minutes?” she demanded.

Ige admitted the state was not prepared for the accidental alert because it had no automated way to cancel a false alarm, but said his administration has been “open and transparent” about the inquiry into what went wrong.

“The analysis went and identified that an individual made a human error in sending the alert out, and we made the changes to assure that the event would never happen again,” he said.

Ige said he has more recently gotten generally high marks for his role in handling flooding on Kauai and the Kilauea lava eruption in Puna.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser Hawaii Poll results released July 15 showed Ige pulling ahead of Hanabusa in the race — a sizable turnaround from the 20-percentage-point lead Hanabusa held over Ige in Hawaii Poll results released March 25.

Hawaii Poll results published May 15 showed 44 percent of those who said they planned to vote in the Democratic primary favored Ige, while 40 percent said they would pick Hanabusa.

For his part, Ige contends that “I’m the only candidate who’s running for governor who really has a real record of accomplishment that you can look at, touch, feel, see. Leadership is about public service.”

Ige cited statistics showing Hawaii has the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, and said 5,300 new homes were built during his first term, including 2,000 affordable homes. He also cited data showing the number of homeless people has begun to drop, while record numbers of visitors are coming to Hawaii.

Ige, 61, unseated former Gov. Neil Abercrombie in the Democratic primary in 2014, and says he ran for governor four years ago “because I felt that special interest and self-interests were being served rather than the public interest. I promised to be governor for all of Hawaii and to restore public trust in government. That’s what leadership is all about: doing the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons.”

Hanabusa, 67, is a great-granddaughter of Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations, and obtained her law degree from the Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She served as a state senator from 1998 to 2010 and was Hawaii’s first female Senate president.

She served in the U.S. House from 2011 to 2015 and was the late Sen. Daniel Inouye’s choice to replace him. Instead, then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie appointed Brian Schatz to the U.S. Senate seat after Inouye died, and Hanabusa left her House seat representing urban Honolulu to campaign against Schatz for the U.S. Senate in 2014.

Schatz defeated Hanabusa in that 2014 Senate race, but Hanabusa returned to the U.S. House in 2016 after the death of Rep. Mark Takai. Hanabusa then announced she would challenge Ige in the Democratic primary for governor this year.

Hanabusa said young people don’t expect to be able to return to Hawaii, and “that is my primary goal: that we will always have a place, job opportunity and housing for the children of Hawaii.”

Ige has challenged Hanabusa on her two-year push for a huge state tax credit for development of an aquarium at Ko Olina, alleging the deal demonstrates that she makes just those kinds of decisions “on behalf of self-interest and special interests.”

Hanabusa led the drive to get lawmakers to approve the Ko Olina tax credit in 2002 and sued former Gov. Ben Cayetano over the issue after he vetoed the bill. The Legislature approved the tax credit again in 2003 at the urging of Hanabusa, and the measure was signed into law by then-Gov. Linda Lingle.

Ige said he was one of the few lawmakers who did not support the Ko Olina tax credit, in large part because the bill Hanabusa advanced was written so that only developer Jeff Stone could benefit from it.

The Honolulu Advertiser later reported that less than a month after the $75 million tax credit was approved, Stone sold a luxury Ko Olina townhouse to Hanabusa’s then-fiance, John F. Souza III. One of Stone’s companies financed the sale by lending Souza $405,773 for the purchase, according to state records.

Souza, who is now Hanabusa’s husband and campaign chairman, bought the Kai Lani townhouse for $569,023 in mid-2003 and sold it for $990,000 in January 2004, according to city tax records.

Hanabusa has said the tax credit is widely misunderstood and that people incorrectly believe Stone received the $75 million when in fact the Ko Olina aquarium was never built and Stone claimed only $3.45 million of the $75 million tax credit. She said there “has never been any wrongdoing found” in connection with the tax credit.

She added that the credit “showed a commitment — during 9/11, now — to a part of this island. My part, that people have ignored,” Hanabusa said, referring to the Leeward Coast areas she represented in the Senate. “The tax credit wasn’t used, but the statement was to the rest of the world, yes, we’re committed to tourism, we’re committed to development of this location.”

Also running in the Democratic primary for governor are Ernest Caravalho, Wendell Kaehuaea, Richard Kim and Van Tanabe. The Republican primary includes John Carroll, Ray L’Heureux and Andria Tupola.

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