Hawaii, birthplace of a magnetic, two-term Democratic president, is usually thumb’s up if the person leading the nation is a Democrat.

Only twice has this mid-Pacific 50th State been out of step in the Democratic presidential support column. Hawaii with almost machine-like regularity has gone blue. The exceptions are twice voting for Republicans for president. Both times it was for a GOP incumbent in the White House.

Hawaii voted Democratic in every election except the 1972 and 1984 contests, when voters gave the state to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, respectively.

Now in 2024, Hawaii doesn’t look like a Donald Trump outpost. Even Waikiki’s Trump hotel has changed its name to Wakea Waikiki Beach.

But what about the current Democratic president, Joe Biden? The 2020 vote count showed that Biden won Hawaii with 63.7% of the vote, a 29.5% margin over Trump, who earned 34.3%.

This year it would be fair to say Hawaii still looks Democratic, although it is a state where the party faithful don’t go to sleep dreaming of the glories of Joe Biden.

Just last week three politically akamai Hawaii leaders, former Govs. John Waihee, Ben Cayetano and Neil Abercrombie issued a press release asking President Biden to pull out of his campaign for reelection.

The disagreement was not because of political dispute or a disagreement over policy, but because Biden did such a poor job in his June 27 debate against former President Trump. This was followed up last week by Hawaii’s U.S. Rep. Ed Case, who called on Biden to end his reelection bid, saying it was “solely about the future, about the president’s ability to continue in the most difficult job in the world for another four-year term.”

In an interview, Cayetano told me he has been a strong supporter of Biden.

“But his horrible debate performance was a game changer for me. It was obvious the debacle was not a case of being unprepared on the issues; time had eroded his cognitive ability,” Cayetano said.

There was, however, no gubernatorial unanimity on a Joe Biden vote, as Hawaii’s current Democratic governor, Josh Green, is backing Biden after meeting with him.

In a news report of a telephone interview last week, Green called Biden a “different individual” in the debate, diagnosing Biden as being ill and exhausted from traveling to Europe before the TV performance.

“I specifically asked the president how he was after he had a tough day during the debate with the former president,” Green said. “He had been exhausted from two trips overseas, and there are no excuses, but he was in fine form today.”

Green is a Biden supporter who has high praise for the president’s strong support for Hawaii after the Lahaina fire.

Politics aside, it would make little pragmatic sense for Green to be anything but a supporter of Biden while the president is helping to shepherd disaster aid to Hawaii.

In the end, the questions by three top politicians in Democratic Blue Hawaii will not be a worry for Biden.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.