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The votes are in, but what do the results mean for Hawaiʻi?

From the biggest races to the issue shaping our communities, we're breaking down the results of the general election.

Who emerged victorious?

What message did voters send and what comes next for Hawaiʻi?

Tonight's live broadcast and live stream of insights on PBS Hawaiʻi.

Start now.

Aloha and welcome to insights on PBS Hawaiʻi.

I'm Daryl Huff.

The 2026 general election was one of the most dramatic and expensive in history, with significant impacts nationally and here in Hawaiʻi.

Democrats swept into power in Congress and many states, and Hawaiʻi was no exception.

Republicans lost 40% of their caucus in the state House, one replaced by Hawaiʻi's first Green Party lawmaker.

The wave also gives our congressional delegation significant new power in D.C.. Tonight, we will look back at some of the races and amendments and what it all means for Hawaiʻi residents.

We look forward to your participation in tonight's show.

You can email or call in your questions, and you'll find a live stream of this program at PBS and the PBS YouTube page.

Now to our guests.

Colin Moore is a public policy analyst and the director of the Matsunaga Institute for peace, as well as an associate professor with the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization.

Chad Blair is the politics editor for Honolulu Civil Beat.

He's been a writer, educator, and editor in Honolulu for more than 35 years.

Dan Nakaso is the Capitol bureau chief at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

He's been an editor and reporter in Hawaiʻi for nearly 30 years, starting at the former Honolulu Advertiser, and Colleen Uechi is the editor of the nonprofit Hawaiʻi Journalism Initiative.

Based on Maui, she is the former managing editor of The Maui News and was also a reporter for the Molokaʻi Dispatch.

You're the youngest person here.

What did you think about what happened on the mainland and what what what's your read on?

What?

What happened?

Well, it's fascinating.

I think we saw, you know, for here in Hawaiʻi, it's not surprising that we saw, of course, the Democrats do well, but there was a lot of surprise in a lot of states that, you know, generally, you know, are red.

It was definitely a rebuke to the Trump administration.

And it was a rise of so many dynamic candidates.

I think that really captured, you know, voters and spoke to a lot of the issues.

Do you think the reason I turn to you first, though, is do you think the youth of America kind of rose up finally?

You know, I think that's part of it.

You know, I think the last two years has been a lot of frustration, and we are seeing some, some firsts in a lot of places.

And so I think not just the youth but a lot of diverse candidates are seeing there's room for me.

This is my chance and there's appetite for, you know, all these types of candidates and a much bigger circle than there was before.

So any of you guys want to pitch in?

Go ahead.

Well, just to add on that youth point, I mean, I don't think there's been a lot of reporting on the exit polls, but they've been very interesting.

So voters under 29 shifted 30 points in the directions of the Democrats.

And this is remarkable because one of the reasons Trump won two years ago is because young men in particular, moved right in a dramatic way.

That's true of Hispanic voters to they moved 28 points back in the direction of Democrats.

And overall, the whole electorate.

We saw 13 percentage points shift to Democrats.

That's the biggest shift since 1976.

So remarkable movement back to Democrats.

You know, in a way we haven't seen in my lifetime.

And so it is I mean, and that in large part explains why we got these shocking results.

I mean, you have South Carolina.

Kansas hasn't elected Democrat since 1932.

And even it looks like potentially Mississippi.

And you've got a woman of color as the governor of Georgia's and Georgia.

Chad, what are your thoughts?

What jumped out at you?

Well, I've never seen anything quite like it.

And I am old enough to have experienced quite a lot of these elections.

I mean, I was thinking about Bush versus Gore back in 2000 or when Trump in 2016 and 2020.

I'm still kind of spinning, I think Alaska yet to be called as well.

Of course, they have ranked choice voting.

It was really exciting to see the diversity of the candidates, people that I thought.

I mean, Texas alone to think that Paxton and then Abbott, these long time entrenched lawmakers, would both go down and it wasn't close in either case, was really remarkable.

So I'm encouraged to think, you know, the status quo can be overthrown.

And clearly it was the war, it was the economy, corruption.

And it's a very exciting time.

Well what's your.

Well, two points that the Democratic Party tent is expanded with socialists and and first gay, openly gay senator from New Hampshire and and Latina governor in Texas and first African-American female in Georgia.

So that's going to be interesting how they how the House in particular and the Senate deal with kind of the, the, the diverse spread in ages and interests.

But number two was, again, the national polls didn't predict this.

And and we've all been down.

Well, I'm not so sure about that.

I mean, my, my my take on the polls, you did hear that word tsunami early on.

And you had people like Nate Silver saying, something's going on here.

And there were indications, I think there was such reserve on the part of pollsters in the media, because they've gotten the numbers wrong before.

In this case, I think in many ways, a lot of the races more or less panned out.

Of course, Trump wasn't on the ballot.

Or was he?

I mean, in many ways, I think he was.

I think that brings up the question.

Talk about that a little bit.

Why was this sort of missed by the media in advance, do you think?

Well, I mean, partially, I agree with Chad that the polls were closer.

I mean, you look at the polling guru, Nate Silver.

I mean, he suspected something somewhat close to this, but the polling organizations have been scared because they have underestimated the Trump vote.

And one of the reasons that has often been proposed is that Trump voters didn't respond to pollsters.

I mean, there became, I think, this suspicion among a lot of MAGA voters that somehow polling organizations were part of the liberal media and they didn't want to participate, which meant that they were missing them from their samples, which meant they were trying to correct for that statistically.

And that can get really noisy.

And so I think you've seen these misses just in different directions both times.

And, you know, it's it has become very difficult to poll now because people don't respond to those texts.

You can't just call them like in the old days.

So they're trying to correct for this.

But I'd say overall, you know, they were pretty close.

They just were, I think, more cautious because of their record over the last few years.

Do you think maybe.

Oh I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

I think maybe it was the signal to right last year when he was elected.

And I think people maybe thought maybe he's a one off.

He's this just absolutely popular, charismatic candidate in a liberal city.

And he got elected as a democratic socialist.

And but I think it signaled that people are frustrated with the way the Democratic Party has been operating in Washington.

They think they're too centrist to conciliatory.

People are ready to push it more to the left and look for dynamic candidates like, you know, we have Talarico, Abdul Al said.

There's so many charismatic candidates in that walking in his footsteps.

And this is a good point.

I don't see this election as a vote for Democrats.

I see it as against Republican Trump.

Well, that's my next question is sort of like, is this a one off or is this a transformational time?

Boy, there's talk right now about Marco Rubio stepping down and whether there's going to be impeachment against Pete and I or even Trump.

Yeah, well, there is even talk about whether he'll finish his term or not.

I mean, what's he doing the first thing after the election?

He's talking about his his arch, the ballroom and his reflecting pool.

And I think that shows.

Boy, did you really miss the the mood of this country right now.

I do think it is an evolutionary change.

And I agree with you about New York, the diversity.

You know, remember this.

The Republicans also ran some very bad candidates and some very bad campaigns.

And I'll point to Ohio and Robinson, often handpicked by the by the president and endorsed and supported.

They agreed with that terrible ad that was writing running about the mother of the of of his opponent and a and they didn't, you know, say, take those ads down.

And those are terrible.

Instead, they said they doubled down, basically.

So they all were surprised himself.

You know, backfire.

Yeah.

But on election night, the Democrats said, we heard that this is not a switch to the Democratic Party.

The voters want change and we have to improve the economy.

And then day after they're talking about impeachments and, well, I think another thing that was so surprising is the margin of victory.

I mean, I think the Senate split is 54 to.

We have some graphics about the congressional seat.

We can start with the Senate.

And right now it's at 54 to 40, 44, 44.

There's two races still undecided, right?

Right.

So if you talk about getting to 56.

You know.

Yeah, it's you're almost filibuster proof.

Yeah.

And we can take a look at the House to the House.

The graphic is even more dramatic.

If we could take a look at the house, look at that.

And you could see that.

Oh my gosh.

No, just you actually look at it.

It's 253.

But my point is, it's for the Democrats to to drop the ball to do something.

Yeah.

And if they become so anti-Trump administration, they run the risk of alienating those those Republicans and independents in 2028 say, hey, that's not what we do you for.

And it's been interesting how careful they've been about the sudden.

Yeah, they're going to you know, they are concerned about the action of the president and some of his appointees, but they're not jumping right into investigations and hearings, even even our own Mazie Hirono when she was interviewed on elections night.

I mean, I think was careful to emphasize that they're going to focus on affordability issues.

I mean, that is pretty much around, you know, for every Democrat, every senior Democrat.

That's the message I've been hearing, which is we heard you, we heard it.

You want your concern about affordability and really de-emphasizing these investigations, which could be hard eventually, because there's a big part of the caucus and certainly many liberal voters who want their pound of flesh.

There's a certainty among all the Democrats I've talked to that there are impeachable offenses for the president.

It's just a question of whether they use it or they leverage him.

You know, Chad, what's your think about about what they should do next?

What and whether they can do it.

The Democrats in Congress.

Yeah, I agree that the I word impeachment will be used very conservatively because I don't remember the guy's been impeached twice now he's a lame duck for sure.

Having said that, what has happened in the last two years under the Trump administration approaches a whole nother level of potential.

Well, unfortunately, he's got immunity with the Supreme Court right now.

But I do think there's going to be a strong drive there.

I do, on the other hand, think they're really got to start focusing on how are they going to bring gas prices down.

I mean, there's a war going on in Iran.

I think that has to be their priority right now to somehow find a way to curb what's happening there.

And we were hearing that Trump and with Netanyahu were getting ready to bomb Iran right after the election.

And I think that's got to be their priority because everything stems affordability from what's going on in the Gulf.

Yeah, I was I did talk to Senator Schatz about that yesterday.

And he says they can't run a war if we don't give them money.

They, they they have to come to us for authorization.

But then I said, but you can't just stop a war from Congress.

They have to negotiate something, which means that he says, I think the president's recalibrating right now.

Well, like I said, Rubio was talking about walking and head says someone's going to take the fall.

I think is the way it looks right now making it easier.

Even the president was saying, well, I suppose Seth could.

It was a Missouri, Tennessee, Tennessee.

He could be a senator.

Boy, they'll be looking forward to his candidacy, won't they?

What do you think voters are expecting out of this new Congress now?

I think they definitely want to see some action.

And they've got a tight window.

Right.

Chad mentioned it.

You know, they've really got a focus on curbing the war.

That is that is where all the issues stem for with affordability and the cost of living.

And they've got two years to to clean up the mess.

And so whatever happens in 2028 that's going to be tough.

Because whatever the state is at that point, voters are going to judge the Democrat Democratic wave that came in by that measure, even if it wasn't necessarily because of things that they had started.

Well, there are things that can do.

They can they can, halt federal gas tax.

They could stop the tariffs.

Tariffs.

Right.

And, you know, if they don't start doing that soon, I mean, soon after being sworn in, they could miss an opportunity.

And the Chad's point about the, the Supreme Court giving Trump immunity, his cabinet is not immune.

His family is not important.

And, you know, corruption was a key topic.

So, but the economy was number the war in the economy were number one.

So they have to play, follow two, two lines of thought simultaneously.

But if you know the everybody's point, if they focus on on the impeachments and investigation and they've got enough, enough votes to override vetoes to.

Exactly.

They can bring a few Republicans over.

I mean, Trump said he's going to be Mr.

Veto, but they can send up bills that will embarrass the Senate Republicans.

That could embarrass the Trump administration.

I mean, these look, politicians are strategic actors.

They know what's coming down and have been given a lesson by the voters to not just Trump.

Right.

So they're they're party has been severely crippled by that president's reputation.

And one thing, you know, I'll just make this point to in the Senate, Republicans know that next cycle.

So the next class of senators that'll be up there really is almost no opportunity for them to recapture the majority in two years.

That's a really tough that's a really tough slate for them.

It's a lot of senators from very liberal states that are going to come up, and so they're going to be stuck probably with a Senate majority for a while.

Really good well-timed call here with our current congressional delegation.

What will their roles be like to help us here at home?

So there's two parts of that question.

What's the what's the circumstance of our delegation and how can they help us Colin, talk about this?

I mean, so this is a this is you know, Senator Schatz is poised to be the Senate majority whip, which is the second highest position in the Senate.

He almost certainly will get that position under Chuck Schumer.

And that gives him tremendous influence.

I mean, they're not just in the majority.

They'll have a lot of he'll have a lot of power over appropriations, over money coming to Hawaiʻi.

I mean, at every step in the federal government, Hawaiʻi will get special consideration.

So in some ways, it's a partial return to the old Daniel Inouye days No days where Hawaiʻi has one of the most powerful people in Washington.

I asked Ed Case about that, and he said his reelection moves.

You know, he's he's on appropriations and subcommittees for Homeland Security and defense.

And he says, you know, we're already sending pork back to Hawaiʻi.

And with the majority that's going to it's going to help on the House side as well as to Colin's point about the senator shots.

Well, sure.

And also to understand the way seniority works in Washington when you have this many people losing their seats, the Hawaiʻi delegation leapfrogged up ahead.

Like I think that Jill said she's going from somewhere in the 300 seconds up to into the 200.

She's only been in for a couple of years.

Is so important in Congress.

At those pins they have, it has their number, their seniority rank on the back.

So they all got to get new pins.

Yeah.

But in terms of in terms of the also, I didn't realize this until I looked into it.

Maybe you were only has one week less seniority than Brian Schatz.

So there's two highly senior members, you know, and she's on armed services education with a real handle on well with Alito and Thomas, both in their late 70s, I believe, isn't it?

Yeah.

Not just 60s.

Late 70s.

Oh, hold on as long as they can.

Yes they will.

Yeah, but let's move on to the local races now in particular.

We we had obviously we had a governor's race.

They didn't really notice that.

What I heard, it wasn't close.

In fact, it was so not close.

It was the biggest margin in Hawaiʻi's history.

It was a 5045 point margin.

Wow.

The biggest ever.

Really, I think double what the last highest one was, or close to think it was between E.J.

and Andrew to poll 2018.

Yeah.

And how much do you think that has to do with the strength of of Josh Green and Derek versus the inability of the Republicans to put any money behind these campaigns?

It's both.

Gary Cordery was not a well known candidate at all.

I'd even forgotten that he had run for governor before, apparently.

But he did actively raise.

You know, he was out there a lot of fundraisers.

He traveled to the islands, he gave a lot of speeches, but nothing ever really took.

There was no debate, of course.

Josh Green used the Rose garden strategy or the Washington Place people did that.

Yeah.

And of course, it seemed very effective.

But when you're picking up the star advertiser every day and there's the green family smiling back at you, and you have all those ads on Hawaiʻi News now and everywhere else, and you just can't compete with something like that.

You know, the, what did you think about the government had it play out in Maui?

Yeah, I was very democratic.

So he also won very easily there.

I think, again, they're very well known.

And there wasn't anything that was so controversial that necessarily knocked him out of the running.

I think the report, the state auditor's report that came out was was very interesting about the call, but it was so close to the election, I don't know how much of an impact it had.

I think it had an impact on the green administration, because you did see the governor very aggressively countering less Kondo going on every media form there was.

He was very bad, and I think he still is mad to this day.

He's saying basically the critics don't understand the program.

In fact, that audit from Les Condo was damning.

And he does.

He does have a couple of cheeks in his armor.

The governor, they just don't, you know, the Republicans just couldn't exploit them.

Yeah, I agree, and I agree that it was the, people not knowing who that was.

I talked to a couple of voters who said, oh, I voted Republican.

And I said, oh, so you voted for, you know, and they said, who's that?

Is that is that the mayor?

I said, no, that's the Republican candidate.

So just reflected how they were not as well known.

And of course, that's just a sample of voters.

But that was one example.

Small sample.

Yeah.

But but but yeah, it was but it was an interesting team.

It was an interesting team.

I mean I think it really represented well the Hawaiʻi Republican Party or the Populist Party.

Tell us a little bit about Daniel.

So Daniel Anthony is a cultural practitioner.

He's been an agriculture advocate, community organizer.

I mean, I think originally he was going to run as a green, and Gary Cordery convinced him to run as a Republican.

And so I think for a lot of folks who end up voting Republican here locally, in many ways it's a response to the ruling Democratic Party.

I mean, people have all a variety of reasons.

They don't like the Democrats.

And then the Republican Party becomes the only possible opposition.

So but but together, they seem to represent that unusual mix between, in some ways, more of the the mega mainland Republicans like Gary Cordery, the anti-vax kind of conspiracy, conspiracy oriented folks.

And then I would say more just of a kind of local populist style politics that you saw with Daniel Anthony.

So together they I mean, they seemed like an odd team, but they sort of make sense.

If you understand how the local Republican Party has shifted for Republicans, it's going to be harder to recruit candidates for 2028.

Shirley Knowles was saying, I was asking her about the national wave and of course in local.

And she says, yeah, it's going to it's going to be a challenge.

They're going to keep trying.

Of course.

But, you know, when you see the defeat by Cordery and nationally, it's, you know, how do you find somebody else that wants to jump in?

You know, speaking of shifting the Republican Party.

You know, Brenton, Iowa ended up being a very unique candidate up against Jill Tokuda.

What do you guys read from that, Chad?

I think Brenton's my friend.

And, we have the two of them side by side.

I think we had the only forum where you could see Jill and Brenton go out there, and there's a very substantive, substantive conversation.

But Jill Tokuda was so much better prepared, so much better informed, carried herself very well.

Brenton looked like he was out of his elements.

He was away from his social media realm where he does excel, and he did not look comfortable at all.

He did not.

I mean, when he speaks on the cuff, sometimes, it doesn't always go in a logical direction.

And I think that came clear.

Pardon me.

It's a weave.

Yes.

That's what the president uses.

But Donald Trump is very unique.

Now, Brenton is already saying that he's going to run for for mayor two years from now, which is kind of odd because he still has two more years to serve in the Senate.

But, and the numbers showed it as well.

Senate leader well, we'll see about that, whether bobbing Dermott allows that to happen.

I'm sure because he said he was going to be possibly is going to be an independent.

Right.

He has already talked about going independent as well, but it just fell apart.

There was nothing there.

And he also didn't have any money.

I mean, let's face it.

And Jill Tokuda was very well funded.

He kind of chose not to have money.

He that is his day, his regret.

That's what made him popular among young progressives.

But you can't win a statewide.

And I mean, it is statewide when you include Rule of all or windward and and you just can't possibly just put your sign up on a highway somewhere and think that's going to be enough.

He did have a lot of signs.

I remember going to Maui and seeing his signs there.

So how did it play on Maui?

There are a lot of science, but I think again, people just didn't know him as well.

And, you know, Jill has really made a name for herself.

And again, with I think we talked about this before, she was there a lot.

Oh, she's on Maui a lot.

She was after the fire, after the fires.

And she stood up outspoken.

Yeah.

Sorry to interrupt.

She stood up that that, federal agency.

You know, one stop shopping for for survivors to get help.

And she was hugging and crying with the survivors and and really hasn't but grasp of local issues and what's going on in Washington.

I mean, she had years in the Senate.

And Brenton just doesn't really.

Excuse me, Senator wa doesn't really pay a whole lot of attention to what's going on nationally.

And we avoided talking about what's going on nationally.

Yeah.

Since we're talking about Maui.

Tell us what was going to be the Bissen didn't seem to have much trouble getting reelection, despite the October surprise of the Pelletier accusation.

Yeah, I think we we saw a preview in the primary right of how well he did.

He basically won all the all the districts in Maui County.

And it's interesting too, because, you know, there were a couple of things that happened during his administration that I think would have sunk a lot of other candidates.

You know, you had to be like a fire.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And yes, there have been so many things that we've been hit by.

And I think it helped that he had a few years after the fire to, you know, show some progress.

Because if the election had happened shortly after the fire, I don't know that he would have done as well.

But I think there's been enough time that people have seen progress.

Lahaina looks completely different.

There's still frustration over the commercial rebuild and the progress of that, but it wasn't enough to sink his campaign.

It was interesting sort of a I don't think it was a political calculation, but it played out well as a political calculation, because as much as we'd like to see Front Street come back, the owners, many of them don't.

I mean, there are lots of local families, but many of them don't live on.

There are many voters represented by Front Street.

That's the thing that they're two of the things that I think would have pissed off voters is, again, Bill nine was the other thing, you know, that outlawed or phased out of short term rentals.

And so a lot of those owners don't live on Maui.

And so that also is true.

It did work on his favor that the people who probably would have voted heavily against him don't live here.

You know, in order to vote.

And there are people locally who depend on those jobs, but the people who own those condos, the vast majority don't live on.

And ukulele was against Bill Nye.

Correct.

So she was against Bill nine, and then she was also, you know, pushing for the commercial rebuild and saying, you know, it hasn't progressed at the level that it should.

I think all the the ads that are being run by the Carpenters Union PAC emphasize small businesses and, and those kinds of things as being her strength.

And the carpenters were in many ways the big losers on Maui.

I mean, they've invested $2 million in UCLA's campaign, a lot of money in another, almost a million in council races.

Tom cook, who lost to Kelly King.

And so they really didn't have much to show for that money.

And Bissen, I think, ended up winning a much.

The margin was much larger than at least I thought it was going to be.

I thought it was going to be a little bit closer.

I also thought it'd be closer in the general.

Yeah.

His campaign business campaign was very worried about the the PR spending.

I think it backfired.

I think voters got turned off by those ads, by all those mailers that were in their boxes.

Yeah.

And there were a ton.

Okay.

And I'm sorry.

Going back to Bill nine, I think that played a role in Kiakona's victory because he was, by all accounts, the governor, the mayor, his he he went from, you know, shaking his fist and protesting the governor and the mayor after the fires to a year later, he gets a seat at the table with the governor and the mayor and and he and others in line.

The strong came up with this idea about the list which led to Bill nine, and now he's got a seat at the table.

And I think, you know, it was the populist vote.

I'm sure played a role in him and the mayor against.

Yeah, we could talk a little bit about that.

It's now a very awkward thing, like for the Democrats or Republicans in the, in the state legislature.

They never had to deal with this before.

Agreed.

Right.

Very, very few state legislatures have had to deal with this before.

I mean, Kia Kona is the fifth person elected and the sixth green to win an election to a state legislature.

So very few had to try to accommodate a third party.

And I think that, you know, it probably is in their interest to reach out because he's such a charismatic figure.

I think he, you know, could be a real, you know, young emerging leader that they want to bring into the fold.

But it's going to be up to him a little bit, too.

I mean, I think that if he doesn't decide to caucus with them or work with them, he could be frozen out.

And we know that the state ledge is very good at freezing out people they don't like.

But this is also yeah, this is all very unusual situation.

I mean, to have a sitting Democrats switch to the Republican Party months before the election, Elle Cochran and then to have Kiakona get union backed major union backing.

Pretty much all of them exactly in the most vulnerable place in the state of Hawaiʻi in the last couple of years.

Lahaina really remarkable.

So unique circumstances led to this historical event.

Well, also his own background, right.

He he is of a farming family from Ohio Valley.

Right.

So he relates very well to that community as well as people who just wanted to see housing.

What did you think of you known him more than we.

Yeah, it's it's fascinating because I think I'm glad that you brought up on Bill nine and Paʻele's election, because I think it's connected.

I think people were ready for major changes.

You know that, Bill.

I think people have talked a lot for a long time about doing something like that.

But the political will wasn't there until the fire happened.

And people were like, you know what?

We need to try anything we can.

We're in a desperate situation, and I think we're seeing that nationally, too.

And with the election of Paʻele, people are like, we want, you know, dynamic, dynamic people who are going to represent the community and, you know, speak to these issues that everybody is struggling with.

And, you know, pilot, as a young Native Hawaiian voice, I think is reflective of the candidates we're seeing across the country.

Were you surprised that Bissen supported Bill nine initially?

I mean, was this a strategic political calculation for him to try to pivot to the progressive side, or was this just kind of came about naturally from his political orientation?

I kind of wondered that.

That's that's a good question, because I honestly, I think it could have backfired.

You know, there was a lot of opposition to it.

And this is not if you were in his second term, you might be thinking, oh, you know, he can he doesn't have to get reelected.

He can, you know, take some risks.

But he took a risk very early.

And I think it just reflected the desperation of the situation.

But rents were already high on Maui.

And after the fire, because of the FEMA funding, all the other landlords said, hey, you know, you've been a long term tenant, but sorry, I gotta I gotta bring in some extra income.

You're out.

And I think that there was, there was a really a really a general recognition of the housing crisis on Maui had had been bad before, made worse by the fires.

And I think that any politicians would have had to have look at any way to generate more housing and and support it.

It seemed sincere enough to me at the time.

But again, this last word, ally, very clever political strategy on his part to see the opportunity at that moment and just drive a train through it like he he he did to run as an alternate party rather than traditional Democrat.

Right.

Because the Democrats, they made him see him for doing anything about this just being stuck.

But we got a good question from Edna, what will be the relationship between Maui County Mayor Bison's reelection and the results of the election for the county council?

That was also a trend, right?

How would you describe the council, the trend with the council members on Maui?

Yeah, that's very interesting because the council for the last few years has been, you know, controlled more so by the moderate faction, and now it's swept back to the progressive.

So it's about 6 to 3.

Marvin Muniz says he'll be part of the nine.

He could end up being the swing vote.

But there are six, you know solid progressives.

So it's going to be really interesting.

And I've heard positives from them so far.

You know, Kelly King and Bobby said, oh I think we're going to be able to move quickly on our priorities because we have synergy with Bissen.

They think he's a mayor that they'll be able to work with.

So it should be interesting to see, and I agree.

You know, based on some of the things he's done, seems he's open to some progressive initiatives.

So it's possible they could be on the same page on a lot of things.

But it's really going to test, you know, how far he might be willing to go.

I have to read this question because it's a it's a it's a fair question and tough on all of us comment moderator and guess are Partizan Democrats all are celebrating Democrats victory versus being objective journalists.

How do you guys respond to how do you feel?

I shouldn't say guys, sorry.

How do you folks respond to that?

When someone comes up to you and say, you clearly hate the president and, you know, you're not being fair.

What's that person's name and address?

You know, we're coming on to, to talk about what we think happened during the election.

It's fair enough to bring these things up.

Journalists have to be nonpartisan.

They have to do their job.

I realize that people think everyone has an opinion and they do.

That's true.

But this is our job to do this.

We've been asked to talk about the results.

Two years ago, we were talking about how amazing Donald Trump was, and we thought that was going to change the world.

Well, it did not in the direction people thought it was going to do.

But I think it's we're doing our job, and I would defend the way we do our job and go ahead, Dan, I would give you a shot at that one.

Well, we're we're reflecting the vote.

We're commenting on how people voted.

And it wasn't just liberal Democrats.

That's what the if I'm reading that question right.

You know, it was independence.

It was Republicans, it was moderate Republicans.

It was young people that came came out to boat for the first time.

You know, the Latino vote switched from from pro-Trump to anti-Trump, the black votes, which, you know, so we're not cheering them on.

We're just saying what happened.

And the pollsters are all, you know, very, reflective of what?

How they missed the boat in past elections.

And they're, they're explaining to Collins Point how they adjusted in this race.

So I don't think that's our opinion.

Colleen, You know, Maui has a has a reputation for having a lot of Republicans that, how do you deal with this this attitude.

You get it too.

I'm sure they have in the past, but it's been pretty heavily Democratic.

And so all of our lawmakers and the state legislature right now are Democrats until Elle Cochran switched parties.

And I agree with them, Dan, of course, you know, with our reporting, you know, we've got to be as objective as possible and give both sides a chance to to speak.

And we work to do that in our reporting.

But also when we're we are reflecting the vote, you know, we're seeing what has happened across the country.

And it is stunning.

And the fascination that we have with it, I think, is reflected here in our commentary and our thoughts.

You know, I just for my part, we try and get Republican voice on, but the Republican voice is, is is small here, right.

It's a it's a minority.

So you have to go find people to respond to these things.

And sometimes it's difficult.

But I would like to bring up something that I heard from a Republican senator, yesterday, I think, on the radio saying the reason all these people are voting is because they are getting bad information from the mainstream media.

They're bad information about gas prices, bad information about Trump.

The media is just not telling the truth.

That's that's what they many Republicans believe Trump supporters believe.

How do you respond to what I mean, I'm curious to see what what do they mean by the media?

I mean, the most powerful news station in the country is Fox News, which is explicitly a conservative news station.

I mean, I believe that they still, despite some losses, have the highest ratings of but there's there's there's one of them and there's CBS, NBC, there's a there's they're outnumbered.

But in terms of their single, their audience, yeah, there's a big audience.

Exactly.

I mean, I don't think it's fair to even characterize the mainstream media anymore.

And most people get their news from social media.

They get their news from a variety of sources.

There is no maybe there was a monopoly decades ago where just the three networks could dictate what people understood through the news, but there's so many opportunities for people to get news from a variety of sources, even here locally.

And I think, I think most journalists work extremely hard to be to be objective.

I mean, there aren't that many local Republican voices to bring on.

I quoted usually try calling.

I had a story on the front page the other day, or maybe it was today.

I can't even remember.

But I quoted, Shirlene Ostrov, chair of the HRP.

I quoted Lauren Matsumoto, the the House Minority Caucus leader.

And I quote Republicans all the time.

And anyway, so we could move on that.

But I just wanted to make sure that we give a voice that I think it's always good to hear criticism and feedback from the community.

That's our job as journalists.

You know, we listen to what people have to say, whether they agree with our reporting or not.

And, you know, our goal is to reflect what's happening in the community.

And the reality is a lot of these things have been impacting.

I've talked to, you know, Republicans, independents, Democrats, and everybody talks about the cost of living.

Everybody talks about gas prices and and tariffs.

I even remember talking to someone who supported Republican policies that actually led to a project that he was working on to lose funding.

And he said, I don't regret supporting these policies, but I'm frustrated that my project lost funding.

So it's very fascinating to see.

And it's affected a wide spectrum of people across the country are saying the president promised to to lower prices on day one.

He promised to end the war on or not Ukraine start anymore.

Yeah.

Ukraine.

And was we're out of the out of the foreign war business and you know that.

And by the way, this may come as a surprise.

There's some readers, but the 2020 presidential election was not stolen.

Joe Biden was the fair winner.

It's funny.

No one's talking about election integrity this week, are they?

Well, I was I was pleased to see the New York Times quickly got to President Trump during election night and reported he says he'll accept the results.

I think people let out a sigh of relief when they heard that, including a lot of Republicans officially.

What do you think?

So how do you think social media has affected us now?

Because we're talking about the mainstream media.

But as Collins said, people aren't accessing media the way they used to.

They don't just watch one television station or one network anymore.

What's it like, especially in the younger generation, about how information is moving, how people are making decisions?

Yeah, social media is a huge part, and it has been for several years in terms of how people get their news, how candidates get their name out there.

And I think that's also a big part of how Paʻele rose to prominence.

I remember talking to him and he said, I remember he he testified on an issue once, and it got posted on social media and a blew up.

And he said that's when he started getting feedback and realizing, hey, you know, I would like to, you know, have a chance to be a voice and represent the community.

And he has a very strong social media, you know, campaign and team.

You know, Lahaina Strong has, you know, they heavily document everything.

You know, they're active on social media.

And that message has gotten out to a lot of voters.

I think it'd be interesting if he if he feels like he's being quashed by the other parties at the legislature, like kind of noise he can make.

But I don't think it's clear that we know that just because something on social media that motivate those consumers or people writing it to actually vote, because I heard from a lot of young progressives, hey, I think Brenton might win.

And I said, okay, did you vote?

Well, no.

You know, it's a good point.

Some people are just scrolling.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's talk now a little bit about Hawaiʻi state Legislature and what happened with the Republican caucus.

Dan, what did you see happen?

Well, they they they lost four out of ten.

Yeah.

Four out of ten.

And they lost Kurt Favela in the Senate, but they, got Bob McDermott.

So they're even in the Senate at three and down to six in the House, and one of them doesn't participate in their caucus, which is nice.

Yeah.

But this is back to their 2022 strength.

So in some ways this is just a return to to where they were.

It's not a huge yeah I don't I don't see it as a as a blue wave locally.

So many of those races were particular Mike and Garner Shimizu.

That's the third consecutive race for those guys.

Joe Gideon out in Hawaiʻi.

Kai I mean, that was Gene Ward for the longest time, but that district's been turning more and more blue.

Rosen.

Lee.

Exactly.

And so many of them were it comes down to personalities and geography.

So I don't see it as a very big change, certainly disappointment.

And Lauren said as much when I interviewed her today, but she also said we're still going to be a voice at the legislature and speaking our mind.

And they do.

House Speaker Nadine Nakamura has intentionally, invited the Republican caucus in, not literally into the room, but saying, hey, you know, we're considering these bills and whatnot, and which is a change.

And I think, some hardcore Republicans have pushed back on that, but they don't want Republicans participating with the Democrats.

But, you know, there's a lot of work to be done.

And just infighting is not going to get anywhere.

But Corey Rosenlee is interesting because, you know, he's that's the third time he's run for that that he finally got in.

Yeah.

And and Elijah Pierick who beat him tried to run for the Senate and got beat.

So that's one of their losses.

But it goes to that question of is is the red wave over on the west side of Oʻahu.

And Corey Rosenlee told me, you know, it's really purple and depends on the candidate.

So it depends on the district.

Yeah.

But I mean, I was going to say, I know they actually when everything was counted because it looked pretty grim during the in that first printout.

But the final results, the Republican Party here stood up relatively well, given this blue wave that washed over the the entire nation.

I mean, a lot of those folks who were elected two years ago benefited from people coming out to support President Trump.

I think a lot of new voters and a lot of them didn't show up this time.

But the Republicans still did.

Okay.

I mean, yes, they lost four seats.

But as Chad mentioned, some of those were unique circumstances, but they managed to defend a few.

You know, they managed to defend at the very end.

It was close, but they did keep them.

So it was by no means an overwhelming defeat for them.

Daryl, can I I know it's your show when you're the moderator could ask all in a question.

You might guess.

I think I know the answer, but I want to get his thoughts on why 25,000 votes on in Honolulu were delivered yesterday and and weren't released.

I mean, the results were released, told 943 last night, but that's a huge surge.

Yeah, there was a big surge in people using the voting service centers for what I understand.

And I explained that because Republicans have been skeptical of Mail-In voting for a while, I mean, this comes from the administration, but I think this election, Democrats got that message to that.

They were worried that the president or the administration may interfere with the mail, and they wanted to deposit that ballot in person.

So because both sides were getting it, I think that was a result.

And I think you saw that when you saw what happened when they added the voting service center.

I'm the Dropbox ballots to the final printout because it didn't it didn't seem to trend super.

Right.

I mean, a little bit, but it wasn't dramatic.

They get a lot fewer from the mail and the post office.

The processing place for the ballots is at the main post office.

So as things are trickling in, they can work the mail, take process and balance as they come in on the mail.

If they're not coming in in the mail, they're coming in in these piles, these huge bags and drop boxes at the drop box.

And by the way, those votes that came in the Office of Elections already said that was the way it was going to be.

It was going to be an Oʻahu only.

And that's what we were all waiting for until 9 or 10:00 last night.

For those of all who votes, by the way, they still could use more voter service centers on Oʻahu than than just two in the final days.

Read the Star Advisors.

Tomorrow I have a story about why was abandoned.

Yeah, I got you.

You're supposed to be on social media already.

My editors?

Yeah, I know the watercolor does.

Ask.

About what?

About the state Senate.

What what what do we see as a dynamic there?

There's a couple of new faces.

Well, there's one new face.

The Democrat Republican split is the same.

Leadership is the same.

The affordability problem in Hawaiʻi has gone on longer than the national one, and the Dems have been in charge there are asleep at the wheel.

Moses.

Yeah, there are some new faces, including in the Democratic side.

Tricia Nakamoto, who is replaced, Karl Rhoads, for example.

But having said that, the Senate has not changed dramatically.

They actually announced their leadership just today or yesterday.

Ron will continue as President Lorraine and will continue as vice president.

Donna Kim will continue to run both education committees.

Jarrett Keohokalole taking over for Rhoads.

So not a dramatic shift in that regard at all.

But there are some new faces that are in in the Senate side, new face who's not entirely new.

I mean, I think probably the biggest personality that's entry in the Senate is Bob McDermott, the Republican.

But he's also a known figure from all the years.

Exactly.

I'm just going to tell you, he's not going to be like Kurt Favela, where he often agreed with the Democrats.

He's going to be very outspoken in his own special.

Well, that was his criticism of favela.

That's why he ran cooperating, that he was not really acting like a Republican and being an independent voice.

But we have the same dynamic in the 43rd House district, which is the nanny Souza, who is a basically a liberal Republican, versus Sheila Madero's, who's much more of a Maga Republican.

Colin, talk about how that played out.

Oh, boy.

Well, I mean, this is folks will remember this was the basket.

And then there were objections to that.

And then the court said, well, we're going to have to rerun the primary essentially.

And so for those voters in those in that district, it said, I believe the words were for Republican voters only, as if they could do anything about they couldn't stop anyone from voting, which, of course, which the media rightfully pointed out.

And so when you look at the results, it seems clear that there were a lot of non Republicans who did participate in that in that election.

Souza one which wasn't so surprising.

In fact, I was surprised pretty close by a bigger margin because I expected a lot of Democrats would have supported her.

But also in Chad pointed this out before the show today, I hadn't even noticed this.

About a third of voters actually left it blank.

So either some people were confused or thought it was sort of an on Your Honor system and were trying to be very honest and not participate.

So a bunch of voters chose not to participate in what was essentially a Republican primary.

Last question about the legislature from a caller.

What does the local Republican Party need to do to gain back seats they lost at the legislature?

They have to get President Trump to run again, right?

Is that.

Anybody want to?

I mean, it always helps to have a character has been helping out some this year.

I in fact, Sheila Madero's put out a flier with an endorsement from Linda Lingle.

Well, that didn't work from Maui.

The governor also endorsed Danny de Gracia, but he lost as well.

I did ask Lauren Matsumoto, and she said there still is a concern about the way that we vote in Hawaiʻi, even though it's clear that Mail-In voting at least seems to be successful and not fraudulent, there are still people that feel that it's not accessible enough they miss that same day voting experience, even though you are allowed to do that, I don't know.

In many ways, their most consistent message is the most important message that every politician in Hawaiʻi says it's too expensive to live here.

Let's come up with a way to bring that to difficult to do business.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, the one thing that they have been successful in over the last few years and they need to do more of is recruit really high quality candidates.

But the trouble is, and I think Lauren Matsumoto could have hinted at this, when they have these losses, it becomes harder.

I mean, running for office is a vulnerable, unpleasant thing often, especially when you're running the first time.

And if you don't think you have a chance of winning, then you're not going to do it.

And so then it becomes harder to recruit the very people with the deep community ties who can win.

And it is a commitment.

I mean, on social media, you're you're blasted and your family to yeah, it's a lot of work.

Yeah, there's a lot of work, speaking a lot of work going through those 20 charter amendments.

I got to dig you guys a little bit.

You was lucky on Maui.

You know, I heard so many people say, including on HNN, it's like taking the SAT.

There's so many questions.

And, you know, I don't know that I agree with that.

For one thing, why don't you fill out your ballot at home rather than wait in line and answer that?

A lot of the stuff was pure housekeeping, and a lot of that stuff is very important.

It actually affects local government.

I agree there were a lot.

What did Maui have?

About eight.

Yeah.

So not a walk in the park either.

But they were complaining on Maui too.

Yeah, but just one each on Kauaʻi and Hawaiʻi Count County as well.

But there were some very important things.

And I thought one of the most significant ones died, the ranked choice voting, which would have gone into effect, I guess, 20, 30, 2032, assuming the ledge approved it.

Exactly.

Which I don't necessarily think they had to do that, but there was an opinion that they had to do that.

But you you see what I think the ledge wrote a bill, passed a law that said they could, and the county was actually asking voters whether they could change the charter to do it, because the Republicans in the legislature tried to repeal that law before any county actually tried to do it.

But you see how ranked choice voting affects the returns by looking at Alaska.

Oh, man.

You know, that's that's still going on.

That one's and we also a we voters approved the constitutional amendment.

There were you know, one made sense and then the other I'm not made sense.

But one of them is pretty technical about the judicial appointments.

Exactly.

And that, of course, people understand that getting quality judges is difficult.

And we have mandatory retirement age.

And, you know, so, that'll help there.

But it just gives the, the, the senators more time to consider.

Well, and on this, the second constitutional amendment, I mean, we earlier pointed out the carpenters had a loss on Maui.

They had a huge win, major.

I mean, this was, you know, we should say that this was, I believe, unanimously supported by the Senate.

All of the mayors supported in the prominent opposition was no prominent.

But at the same time, what I think many of supporters were worried about is people would confront this and see words like bonds and tax rise.

Yeah, I'm talking about the the other constitutional.

Yeah.

The other one.

Yes.

And they would leave it and they would leave it blank.

And because the con ams have to pass with a majority of all ballots cast in this case, I mean, I was shocked 62% of people supported it.

Yeah.

So people paid attention.

They got that message because because unlike a charter amendment, if you don't vote on the constitutional amendment, it counts as a no vote.

How did they did that do just as well on Maui as it did other places, because Maui is a little bit more concerned about growth and all of the emphasis was on growth.

The neighbors are usually more concerned about growth.

But but yeah, I think I think people hear that the message got across enough that this was to help with housing.

And so I think people are willing to try just about anything to ease the housing crisis.

And, you know, it was it was technical, but I think, you know, Col and I talked about this too, that I think, you know, they had a lot of messaging about it and not a lot of opposition.

So.

And millions and millions of dollars from the carpenters.

You're right.

But it's not just housing, which is obviously critical to every day, every day people, but also bridge repairs and sewers.

Sewer.

Yeah.

All that.

Well, but the fact of the matter is that those bonds aren't going to help those things.

The bonds are going to promote new development by putting in new.

But that wasn't what the message.

That's not what the message was.

Right.

So they, they, they used thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was, it was a frankly it was a deceptive message.

They had pictures of roads on Oʻahu and Colleen.

I believe they had we were talking about this.

There was an ad that had it was I think it was like the Lena Luna football game or something against Paradise.

So they really played up the lack of housing and connected it to the crisis in the recovery from the fire.

And that probably had some, you know, emotional impact.

Back to the charter amendment.

Did anything else jump out at you guys about the way people voted on those things?

To me, I'm always impressed by the intelligence of the of the voting body, the electorate.

You know, there was one that passed, if I remember correctly, that if someone's been impeached, they have to wait a couple of years before they can run again.

That seemed like a common sense.

Won an Office of Data and Innovation, something that more or less existed in one form or another that passed as well.

They seemed, I would agree with you, a fairly common sense approach.

The anti ice amendment was overwhelmingly supported.

This is where the HPD basically have to go overboard and make sure the people that are involved with understand their rights, particularly as Ice is involved here.

And that was very, very progressive.

But and it's not that the voters were just in favor of establishing new departments either.

So so the IT one did go through, but I was a little surprised to see that the LGBT Commission wasn't even close.

And actually the Office of Resources was did that end up?

It did end up passing, but it was I'm just looking at it pretty close, 46 to 42.

So closer than I would have expected.

Yeah, that's an interesting one because we just created our own Department of resources.

And so now other counties are looking at it.

Now, the last but not least, we haven't talked about OHA yet.

So what significantly happened there?

I mean, it seemed like incumbents pretty much.

Well, John IV, who has been an OHA trustee for a very, very long time, these do not have any term limits.

Last I checked, he finished fourth in the three top races for the OHA at large.

Trustee Akina, I believe, came in first and I want to say it was Susan came in first.

She was very close to six, 10.6, ten, 10.1, ten, 9.9.

It's really close.

Yeah.

And and the biggest thing is how is Akina going to do talk about a big body coming into that, that organization.

You have such a divided OHA board of trustees right now 5 to 4.

And with Waiheʻe out.

That could certainly impact this very narrow margin.

So much is going on the struggle to find a new CEO, the legal challenges.

And and remember, this is something that I always I have to stress.

OHA races are open to every voter statewide.

And you don't even have to be Hawaiian to vote or to run for OHA.

And yet usually those ballots are often left blank.

Yeah, I 40% of people chose not to vote for the at large trustee race.

Yeah.

In the Maui race, the number of blank votes was more than either candidate received on their own.

I think it was less about them as candidates because they're well known people on Maui.

But just people have complicated feelings about whether to vote for OHA overall.

Folks, how do you feel that the election was conducted on Oʻahu?

We've got about a minute to talk.

I will say very quickly the statewide how did the elections Division do?

Should we worry about that operation?

That's going to be topic number one, the Elections Commission, because of the ruling of the Supreme Court.

We'll be going back to work later this month.

Half of them want to get rid of Scott Nago, and some of them might have some very good reasons for that.

Overall, I've not seen any kind of reports or fraud.

Yes, there were some lines here and there, but I think it's all going to come down to the elections office, which is very heavily divided, politically divided commissions.

Thank you.

The Elections Commission correction.

Yeah, which still hasn't picked a ninth member for a chair.

Correct.

And to just, you know, which would be the swing vote on some of these issues.

Scott the ledge changed the the the law to I can't remember what year it is.

Well we're out of time now, but thank you and mahalo for you folks for joining us tonight.

And we thank our guests, political analyst Colin Moore and Dan Nakaso from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Chad Blair from Civil Beat and Colleen Uechi from Hawaiʻi Journalism Initiative.

Medicaid changes are coming January 1st due to the One Big Beautiful Bill act of 2025, we will break down what that means for thousands of Hawaiʻi residents who depend on medical bed quest for their health care.

On the next insights, please join us then.

I'm Daryl Huff for insights on PBS.

Aloha.

Insights on PBS Hawaiʻi is sponsored by Carlsmith Ball, Aloha State Daily, and the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center.