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2024 Hawaii & National Election Coverage

Now that Hawaii’s 2022 primary election is over, most voters will have an opportunity to choose between a Democrat and a Republican candidate to represent them in the state Legislature.

A historically high number of Republican candidates entered races this year for legislative seats — competing for 64 of 76 seats in play — and will be on ballots for Hawaii’s Nov. 8 general election.

There’s a fair chance that a few of the Republican candidates can unseat Democrat incumbents, according to Colin Moore, director of the University of Hawaii Public Policy Center.

But there’s also a decent likelihood, in Moore’s view, that one of the few seats in the Legislature currently held by Republicans will be won by a Democrat, while one other race with an incumbent Republican could be close.

Two of the Democratic incumbents that Moore said are vulnerable, Reps. Matt LoPresti and Sharon Har, were charged this year or in 2021 with drunken driving offenses and represent parts of Oahu that have a considerable share of conservative residents.

LoPresti, who has served three terms in the House of Representatives and was arrested in June on suspicion of drunken driving and then charged with the offense in July, is seeking reelection to House District 41 covering part of Ewa Beach and Kalaeloa. He received 1,873 votes as an unopposed candidate in the Democratic primary. Two Republicans competed in the primary for LoPresti’s seat, and business owner David Alcos prevailed with 1,246 votes to top 466 votes received by Daniel Wade.

Moore noted that 1,095 voters in the district who opted to cast their ballot for only Democrats in the primary registered blank votes instead of voting for LoPresti.

“That’s never a good sign,” Moore said. “I’m sure Republicans are going to concentrate their energy on this race.”

In neighboring House District 42, which includes parts of Kapolei and Ewa neighborhoods, Har is trying to extend her service in the Legislature, which dates to 2006, in the wake of a 2021 drunken driving arrest and acquittal on procedural grounds in January.

Har beat two Democratic challengers in the primary but received fewer votes than her two opponents combined — 1,237, compared with 933 for Anthony Paris and 816 for Lori Goeas.

Now Har faces Republican candidate Diamond Garcia, who was the only Republican in the primary for the district and received 1,296 votes.

Garcia is chief of staff to Rep. Gene Ward, a Republican who has served in the Legislature for 25 years and is unopposed in his bid for reelection.

Moore said Garcia is in a good position to unseat Har.

“He’s a legit candidate running in a district that’s conservative against an incumbent who is weak,” Moore said.

The one other contest where Moore perceives a potential Democratic in­cumbent upset is in Senate District 23, which after redistricting this year stretches from Mokuleia into part of Kaneohe and is represented by Sen. Gil Riviere.

Riviere has served in the Legislature for 12 years, and will face former local TV news reporter Brenton Awa in the general election.

In the primary, Riviere received 6,194 votes, though there also were 1,976 blank votes. Awa received 2,919 votes and topped another Republican, Arthur Hann­e­mann, who received 1,017 votes while there were also 283 blank votes.

“Republicans always have a shot on the North Shore,” said Moore, noting that there is a large concentration of conservative residents in the district given that Laie is home to the Mormon Church temple and Brigham Young University Hawaii.

Moore said not too much should be read into how a general election will play out by comparing primary vote tallies between Republican and Democratic candidates, because a lot of independent voters can gravitate to voting for only Democratic candidates in the primary to have a say in certain races, like for governor, and then opt to vote for a Republican in a legislative race in the general election.

For instance, two years ago in a race for a House seat representing part of Mililani, Republican candidate Val Okimoto received 2,071 votes in the primary election compared with a combined 7,158 votes split between Democratic candidates Trish La Chica and Marilyn Lee. Okimoto then took the general election with 6,949 votes to 6,337 for La Chica.

Rep. Okimoto’s district this year is being absorbed in redistricting, and she is running for Honolulu City Council.

Lee, however, is currently competing for a seat in the Legislature and could make a decent run against Republican incumbent Rep. Lauren Matsumoto representing part of Mililani in a redrawn House District 38.

Matsumoto was first elected to the House in 2012. Lee previously served in the Legislature for 16 years, but in efforts to return has lost to Republicans in recent elections.

Moore thinks Matsumoto is probably safe from being unseated, though this race could be interesting to watch.

“That’ll be a competitive general election race for sure,” he said.

There is one seat in the Legislature held by a Republican that Moore sees as being more likely to be taken over by a Democrat in the general election: a seat held by Rep. Bob McDermott, who has represented parts of Ewa Beach in House District 40 for seven terms but opted to run for U.S. Senate this year.

Republican candidate Janie Gueso, a substitute teacher who also helps run her family’s 76-year-old grocery and liquor retail business, Silva Store, in the community, beat out another Republican contender in the primary for McDermott’s seat with 811 votes to 647.

On the Democrat side, former teacher and legislative aid Rose Martinez received 1,194 votes and beat out two same-party contenders who together received 1,316 votes.

Both Gueso and Martinez have deep roots in the community, which make this race difficult to forecast.

Lynn Finnegan, chair of the Hawaii Republican Party, said more support for Republicans was dem­onstrated in Saturday’s primary election results than in any recent election cycle, with Republican candidates receiving over 20% of the total vote and representing the highest percentage since 2002, when Republican and former Maui Mayor Linda Lingle was elected governor.

“We are fired up and ready to take down the Democrat establishment in the general election,” Finnegan said Sunday in a statement. “As Republicans in Hawaii, we know we are the underdogs. We fight an uphill battle every election. Yet this cycle, we are climbing that hill with an army of volunteers and supporters ready to take on the fight in every district for every seat.”

Moore suspects that the relatively deep field of Republican candidates for this year’s elections in Hawaii is probably a combined result of more recruiting by party leaders and a response to the last national election and political events. However, he said in the big picture for Hawaii’s Legislature, not too much will likely change given that there are only four Republicans in the 51-member House and one in the 25-member Senate.