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The uncertainty and disunity within the dominant Hawaii Democratic Party is showing up as the race to replace U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa in Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District begins.
Democrats may hold nearly all elected partisan seats in the state, but the political reality is that the Democrats make more of a shaky coalition than a solid majority.
Two things: The December 2012 death of Hawaii’s longest-serving political majordomo U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, and the 2016 victory of political outsider U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders capturing 70 percent of Hawaii Democrats’ presidential preference poll, caused the party to split.
Without Inouye to enforce discipline and party newcomers unwilling to support the establishment’s Hillary Clinton, the party was without a viable leader or a rallying point.
The party’s factions are even more divided because Gov. David Ige, ostensibly the face of the local Democratic Party, is being challenged by Hanabusa in the 2018 governor’s race and is unable to unite the factions.
Indeed, Ige came to power only by his victorious, party-dividing challenge to the previous Democratic governor, Neil Abercrombie.
So next year’s race for the congressional district that stretches from Mililani and Waipahu, past Pearl City, Kalihi and downtown to Hawaii Kai, is wide open.
The candidates in a Hawaii Democratic primary must appeal to voters who are more liberal or progressive than most. The Democrats who vote in the primary tend to be union members and older.
The first two major announced candidates for the 1st Congressional seat are state Sen. Donna Mercado Kim and Maui Rep. Kaniela Ing.
Kim ran in 2014, when Hanabusa was running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. Although Kim initially was the candidate to beat, she managed just 27 percent to Mark Takai’s 43 percent in the final primary-
election tally.
Ing has three terms in the state House while Kim has been a force in Democratic politics since 1982. She is a conservative Democrat while Ing is a progressive. The candidates’ strengths offset each others’ weaknesses, in that Kim is well-known and comes from a strong blue-collar background in Kalihi. Ing is just starting out in politics, having gotten his start with impassioned speeches supporting same-sex marriage during the legislative special session several years ago. Also he represents Maui and has hardly any Oahu political base.
The rest of the Democratic slate has yet to form, but the speculation is high that both state Rep. Beth Fukumoto and Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin will enter the race.
Both would add intriguing qualities to the contest.
A year ago Fukumoto was the House Republican leader who was opposed to the nomination and election of Donald Trump. Her speech during a Women’s Day rally cost her GOP leadership position and she declared herself a Democrat. The party took her in as she gained a bit of a national reputation for her stand. Last week Fukumoto said she is “exploring a potential run.”
Also standing against Trump is Chin, who has been prominent in much of the national fight against Trump’s immigration policies.
By his count, Chin told the Star-Advertiser’s Rob Perez that he “has taken positions against more than 20 Trump policies and practices, mostly through lawsuits, legal briefs supporting other states’ lawsuits and official letters sent to the administration or Congress.”
As far as his political future, Chin was asked if he intended to run for elected office and Chin declined to discuss that.
He is a member of the Democratic Attorney Generals Association, which lists itself as “the first line of defense against the new administration”; at the same time Chin first came to public service as the managing director for then-Mayor Peter Carlisle, a Republican.
If Fukumoto and Chin jump into the mix, the resulting winner is likely to go a long way to redefine what it means to be a Democrat in Hawaii.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.
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