As the Hawaii Republican Party has weakened over the years, Hawaii’s primary election has become more important than ever.

Turnout will be critical in Democratic matchups on Aug. 11 — with those primary ballots deciding the outcome of most of Hawaii’s most important 2018 election contests.

Republicans have struggled to remain viable in recent years as prominent party members such as Beth Fukumoto and Charles Djou have quit the party and the number of GOP office holders has dwindled.

Today there are no Republicans left in the 25-member state Senate and only five left in the 51-member House. The governor, lieutenant governor and the four-member Hawaii delegation to Congress are all Democrats, and it will be extremely difficult for the GOP to capture any of those top-tier offices.

As the Republicans have weakened, they have been unable to field strong candidates for many offices, and in many cases have been unable to field any candidate at all. In those races where no Republican is running, the Democratic primary almost always determines the outcome of the election.

The races for the state Legislature this year offer another dramatic illustration of that trend.

The Republicans were unable to field candidates in 33 of 51 state House seats and were also unable to put up candidates for eight of 13 state Senate seats that are up for grabs this year, which means it is virtually certain all of those races will be decided by the time the primary ends.

Despite the growing importance of the primaries, the number of people participating in Hawaii primary elections has been generally declining over the past 20 years, and dropped to less than 35 percent in 2016.

All of that adds up to a shrinking pool of participating primary voters, who have an outsize influence over each election. The most reliable Democratic primary voters tend to be voters of Japanese ancestry, union members and seniors, political observers say.

Meanwhile, voting has become easier than ever with the widespread use of mail-in and walk-in absentee balloting in the weeks leading up to elections.

State election officials say nearly 62 percent of the people who did participate in the 2016 primary used absentee mail-in ballots or were absentee walk-in voters.

Hawaii in 2012 moved its primary elections from September to the second Saturday in August. Absentee ballots are distributed by the county clerk’s offices 20 days before election day.

For more information, visit the state Office of Elections website at elections.hawaii.gov.

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