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Former U.S. Attorney and Circuit Court Judge Steve Alm defeated former Deputy Prosecutor Megan Kau in the race to become Honolulu’s next prosecuting attorney.

Alm was ahead with 56% of the votes to Kau’s 44%, according to the second printout results released shortly before 2 a.m. Wednesday.

In an interview, Alm said he campaigned hard until the end.

“I think the overall response across the whole state and the island was positive,” he said. “People appreciated the fact that I was giving a balanced message. When I was on the bench, I was the one doing the toughest sentencing. But you don’t have to send everyone to prison.”

Both Alm, 67, and Kau, 42, campaigned first and foremost to restore integrity to an office rocked by the corruption scandal involving former Deputy Prosecutor Katherine Kealoha.

The winner becomes the first elected prosecutor since Keith Kaneshiro, who has been on paid leave since March 2019 after being named a target of the federal corruption investigation that already resulted in convictions for Kealoha and her estranged husband, former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha.

Alm, a former Honolulu deputy prosecutor himself, said restoring the integrity of the office is his top priority. He plans to take a closer look at all of the cases touched by Kealoha, determine her involvement and take appropriate action.

“I feel bad for some of the deputies who didn’t have anything to do with (the scandal). But they’re all under a cloud,” he said.

Alm spent much of the past three years in Washington, D.C., acting as a consultant for HOPE Probation, an award-winning program he created in 2004 to reduce probation violations by drug offenders and others at high risk of recidivism.

When Alm came back to Hawaii, his name recognition helped vault him into frontrunner status, a position he did not relinquish over the course of the campaign.

Megan Kau left the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office at the end of 2010 to work in a private practice specializing in civil litigation, criminal cases and personal injury.

Kau, who was urged to run for office by colleagues, conceded that Alm does have plenty of experience, but she said she brought to the table “more recent and relevant experience” in Honolulu’s legal system.

Often labeled the law and order candidate, Kau said she planned to prosecute all level of crimes, saying a prosecutor’s sole authority is to objectively apply the criminal laws that already exist.

Kau, who assisted the federal government in investigating Kealoha, vowed to terminate anyone in the office who helped the jailed deputy prosecutor carry out her misdeeds.

On the campaign trail, Alm said his experience would help him bring credibility to the office and create a culture of high ethical standards in the prosecutor’s office.

“I want to make it a place where it’s prized to work at again,” he said.

Alm said he wants to look at starting new and innovative programs to address crime concerns in the community. That includes reinstating proven initiatives from the past, such as Weed & Seed, a program Alm led while he was U.S. Attorney that reduced crime in Kalihi-Palama and Chinatown by over 70% in three years.

Alm said he would be interested in working to clean up Chinatown again.

In August’s primary election, Alm finished with a comfortable cushion of votes, but he didn’t have the 50%-plus needed to win outright. Kau finished a distant second (24% to Alm’s 41%) and ahead of Deputy Public Defender Jacquie Esser, who was third with 19%.

Alm also held a solid lead in the polls, including being out in front by 8 percentage points in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Hawaii Poll about two weeks ago. But, according to the poll, a quarter of all voters remained undecided, so there was ground that could be made up.

The poll revealed that male voters were just about split between Alm and Kau, while women favored Alm substantially, 43% to 30%.

By race, Japanese and Hawaiian voters overwhelmingly favored Alm by 29 and 23 percentage points, respectively, while white voters preferred Kau by 4 percentage points.

By party, Republicans supported Kau 41% to 28%, while Democrats and independents favored Alm 49% to 31% and 40% to 29%.

Only three people have held the job of Honolulu prosecutor since it became an elected position in 1981: Kaneshiro, Peter Carlisle and Charles Marsland.

Alm, born and raised in Hawaii, graduated from University High School. He earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Oregon and law degree from the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law.

Alm joined the prosecutor’s office in 1985 and served as a deputy prosecuting attorney until 1994, having served as the director of the District and Family Court Division for four years. President Bill Clinton named Alm U.S. Attorney for Hawaii in 1994, a position he held for seven years.

He served as a judge on the First Circuit Court of Honolulu from 2001 to 2016 and was given the State Judiciary’s Jurist of the Year award in 2010.