Tupola agrees to include lieutenant governor candidates in debate

Democratic Gov. David Ige and his Republican challenger, Rep. Andria Tupola, will participate in a live televised debate hosted by KHON at 9 p.m. Oct. 15 that will include their lieutenant governor running mates. It was uncertain last month whether the debate would happen as tensions between Tupola and Marissa Kerns, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, spilled into public view.

The format will include a moderated debate between Ige and Tupola, which will be interspersed with a separately moderated question and answer session with Kerns and state Sen. Josh Green, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, according to KHON. The debate will last an hour.

Tupola said she wanted to have a full, hour-long debate with just Ige and herself so that voters could better understand their plans for addressing issues such as homelessness, the state’s high cost of living and the creation of more housing on Hawaiian homelands. She wanted the candidates for lieutenant governor to debate one another separately. But she said the Ige campaign wouldn’t agree.

Insisting that the KHON debate include the candidates for lieutenant governor was a strategic move on the part of Ige’s campaign given the tensions on the Republican ticket.

Kerns has criticized Tupola for being too liberal and seemed to even taunt her into agreeing to the KHON debate.

“I’ll debate David Ige, I’ll debate Josh Green. Anytime, anyplace. Let’s go!” she wrote in a Facebook post last month. “All we need is Andria Tupola to say ‘yes’ to Hawaii News Now and KHON and the debates can finally take place. Why refuse?”

Former Sen. Sam Slom, for years the lone Republican in the state Senate, acknowledged the ongoing party infighting that has hampered the party’s success, but said the party has good candidates. He is supporting both Tupola and Kerns, who he endorsed this week.

“The party has not been strong, but you known technically neither has the Democratic Party. They just don’t wash their dirty laundry in public,” he said. “The Democrats are smart because they will get their people elected and then they will fight. We fight first and don’t get our people elected.”

The KHON debate will be the only major debate before early voting begins. There is one other scheduled gubernatorial debate with KITV at 9 p.m. Oct. 29.

Tupola has expressed frustration throughout the campaign that Ige hasn’t agreed to more debates, a tactic common among leading incumbents.

“I love having debates because I think that organic and transparent discussions are super necessary in democracies,” Tupola said.