Candidates vie for votes on the last day before Election Day

Candidates running in this year’s primary made their final pitches to voters this week ahead of election day on Saturday. Streets were peppered with candidates and packs of volunteers sign-waving. Campaign ads flooded televisions, the radio, Facebook and Twitter. Last-minute endorsements were made, and political barbs against opponents were hurled.

Ed Case, who is hoping voters will send him back to the U.S. House of Representatives this year, finished walking the entire 1st Congressional District, from Makapuu to Kahe Point, on Wednesday. After trekking 10 to 15 miles a day for a week, he capped it off with a Facebook video of himself throwing a shaka and jumping into the ocean.

State Rep. Kaniela Ing, who is also vying for the urban Oahu seat, got a boost this week when New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez flew in to Oahu to host a campaign rally with him. Ocasio-Cortez made national headlines when she beat a 10-term incumbent in the Democratic primary this year, and has thrown her political weight as an emerging progressive leader of the Democratic Party into helping Ing.

In addition to the congressional seat, which is being vacated by Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa, voters will cast ballots for governor, lieutenant governor, 11 vacant seats up for grabs in the state Legislature and the next mayors of Maui and Kauai. This is in addition to dozens of other legislative and County Council races throughout the state.

U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono is also up for re-election this year but is running unopposed in the Democratic primary and is expected to sail into another six-year term in the general election. U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who represents the neighbor islands and rural Oahu, is also expected to easily win another two-year term despite spirited opposition from Democratic primary challenger Sherry Campagna.

While the general election is three months away, the Democratic primary ballots will be deciding the outcome of most of Hawaii’s 2018 election contests. The Republican Party has struggled to remain viable in recent years and was unable to field strong candidates for many offices this year, and in many cases didn’t field a candidate at all.

The number of Oahu voters choosing to hit the ballot box early via the “absentee walk-in” option was lower this year than it was for the 2016 primary election.

There were 9,928 people who voted early at Honolulu Hale and Kapolei Hale in 2016. But as of the end of day Thursday, the last day of walk-in voting, 9,130 people had chosen the option, according to the Office of Elections.

The number of absentee mail-in votes, however, is expected to exceed the 2016 totals. As of end of Thursday, the city had received 92,579 ballots, and the clerk’s office will be accepting mail-ins until 6 p.m. Saturday. The total for the 2016 primary was 93,500, election officials said. “I think we’re going to break that,” said Rex Quidilla, Honolulu election administrator.

The number of Hawaii County voters choosing to walk in to vote was also down, according to Pat Nakamoto, Hawaii County election administrator. She reported 4,719 absentee walk-in votes cast as of end of Thursday, down from the 4,837 absentee walk-in votes in 2016.

Absentee mail-in votes are also on the rise. There were 21,713 received as of Thursday, up from the 2016 primary total.

In Kauai County the number of early walk-in voters bucked the trend and went up to 2,623 midway through Thursday, up from the 2,348 who walked in early in 2016, said Lyndon Yoshioka, Kauai election administrator.

The county had received 7,815 absentee mail-in ballots as of midday Thursday, up from the 7,644 returned absentee mail-in ballots from the 2016 primary.

Maui County data was not immediately available.