Hawaii lieutenant governor’s race deadlocked

The most exciting race in the Aug. 13 Democratic primary election may be the photo finish between three deadlocked lieutenant governor candidates.

Three of the six candidates are in a statistical dead heat among registered voters who participated in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Hawaii Poll.

State House Finance Chair Sylvia Luke led the poll with 21%, followed by 19% for former mayoral candidate Keith Amemiya and 18% for former Honolulu City Council Chair Ikaika Anderson. Sherry Menor-McNamara, CEO and president of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, trailed with only 4%.

Because of the poll question’s 5.6% margin of error, Luke’s slight lead means that she, Amemiya and Anderson are essentially tied.

That means they’ll be scrambling to convince every one of the 38% of undecided Democratic voters to choose them.

“That may turn out to be the most interesting election to watch,” said political analyst Neal Milner. “It’s a three-way tight race. Everyone has a shot, except maybe for Sherry.”

Anderson agreed in an interview with the Star-Advertiser.

“There’s a three-point spread between the top candidates with a margin of error of 3 points and 38% of the voters undecided,” Anderson said. “It’s going to be a good race, giving our community and our party solid choices, something not often done in Hawaii elections with this type of a margin of error. It’s anybody’s race and the ballots just dropped. The undecideds are going to play a huge factor.”

The other two Democratic candidates are Daniel Cunningham, who previously ran for higher office, and Sam Puletasi.

Luke told the Star-Advertiser in a statement that the Hawaii Poll “shows how far we have come since the campaign started and I’m grateful that voters continue to help us maintain our momentum. Hawaii families are really struggling and are looking for a state leadership team that will work well together to assist them with their everyday needs. That’s what I am all about.”

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Amemiya said in a statement that, “Voters are responding to the fact that I’m the only candidate for Lt. Governor with a real plan to clean up corruption, while other candidates in the race are career politicians or lobbyists who held some of the most powerful positions in the state over the last 10 years and did nothing while homelessness, the housing crisis, and the culture of corruption have gotten worse in Hawaii.”

Menor-McNamara wrote in an email: “As a first-time candidate running in a field of career politicians, I always knew this race would be an uphill battle. My opponents have spent collectively over $2 million and yet close to 40% remain undecided, which tells me that voters are not being swayed by the big money, union endorsements, and establishment king-makers that have controlled Hawaii politics for far too long. The people of Hawaii want and deserve a fresh start. I’m not running for lieutenant governor to further any personal political ambition. Ours is a grassroots campaign about tackling the big-­picture issues facing our state like lowering the cost of living and doing business in Hawaii, jump-­starting our economy, and making sure that voices of the neighbor islands and other often-overlooked communities are no longer ignored when decisions are being made.”

The job of lieutenant governor has no day-to-day responsibilities, but is considered a high-profile platform to run for higher office.

Then-Lt. Gov. Ben Cayetano served under then-Gov. John Waihee before Cayetano was elected to two gubernatorial terms himself.

U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz served as lieutenant governor under former Gov. Neil Abercrombie.

Now current Lt. Gov. Josh Green is the leading candidate to become Hawaii’s next governor this year, leaving the lieutenant governor’s race wide open for the second consecutive time.

In the 2018 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, Green won with 74,845 votes compared with 68,124 for former state Sen. Jill Tokuda — a difference of less than 3%.

It takes only a plurality of votes to win the party primaries for lieutenant governor before moving on to the Nov. 8 general election.

The Hawaii Poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy of Washington, D.C., from July 12 to 17 through statewide telephone interviews of 800 registered Hawaii voters. The poll’s overall margin of error was 3.5%, but the margins were higher for questions asked only of either Democrat or Republican primary voters.

Those interviewed were selected randomly from a telephone-matched Hawaii voter registration list that included both landline and cell phone numbers. Quotas were assigned to reflect voter registration by county.

Running in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor are Rob Burns, Tae Kim and Seaula Jr. Tupai. The lone nonpartisan candidate is Charles (Kale) Keoho.

The Hawaii Poll found Republican voters favored Burns, with 37%; Tupai, 25%; followed by Kim with 5%. However, 33% of the GOP voters were undecided, and the margin of error was 8.7% due to the smaller number of respondents.

Poll participant Robert Bonnes, a 39-year-old father of two, owns an auto shop in Wailuku and said he did not recognize the names of most of the candidates running for lieutenant governor.

Depending on the candidates and offices, Bonnes has voted for both Democrats and Republicans.

On Maui this year, Bonnes said, there’s little buzz about the lieutenant governor’s race and little messaging from any of the candidates on their important issues.

“If I’m not actively looking for it, it’s not readily available, which is sad,” he said.

Colin Moore, director of the University of Hawaii’s Public Policy Center, says the Democratic race is a “dead tie” given the margin of error and with 38% of voters undecided. “Any of the three could win, which is remarkable,” he said.

Unlike the close 2018 race between Tokuda and Green, Moore said “this is a three-way race and it’s anybody’s race among those three.”

The deadlock is particularly interesting for Luke, the only current elected official who is coming off of a legislative session of record state spending for several programs, Moore said.

The race is a tie even though Luke has the majority of campaign endorsements and “has spent vastly more,” he said. “And it shows that Amemiya is still competitive and some of the progressives are rallying around him.”

Anderson this month won the endorsement of the carpenters union, whose affiliate is running commercials on Anderson’s behalf.

“I have no idea how this is going to shape up,” Moore said. “So this is when money is going to be crucial. It’s going to be a squeaker.”