In the contentious race to become the Democratic candidate for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District, Jill Tokuda dominated challenger Patrick Pihana Branco in Saturday’s primary election results, capturing a lead of more than twice as many votes and a berth in the Nov. 8 general election.
Meanwhile, congressional incumbents U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz and U.S. Rep. Ed Case easily won their respective Democratic primary races.
Tokuda, who was celebrating the results at a gathering of supporters in Kaneohe at Castle High School, her alma mater, said her decisive lead showed that voters in the Aloha State did not take kindly to negative ads by mainland political action committees that attacked her.
“There were tremendous forces, dark money, trying to buy this election. This was a large, loud statement that these decisions should be made by the people of Hawaii,” she said.
Branco, who was with family and friends at his family home in Kailua, said he called Tokuda soon after the first printout and left her a message. “I wished her congratulations and said this was a hard-fought race,” he said. Branco added that he will support Tokuda in the general election because “we need to make sure a Democrat remains in the seat.”
Branco and Tokuda had clashed repeatedly over political action committee advertising and campaign donor contributions. Multiple political action committee ads have targeted Tokuda and her positions on guns and other issues. Branco has been accused of encouraging such ads through “red boxing,” a strategy named after the tactic of mainland politicians who suggest negative talking points against their opponents in a red box on their websites.
Red boxing skirts campaign laws that forbid candidates from directly communicating with so-called super PACs, said Colin Moore, director of the University of Hawaii’s Public Policy Center. Branco has strenuously denied Tokuda’s allegations that he has solicited for “dark money.”
Despite the attacks on Tokuda, she appeared to ride on strong name recognition from comparatively more years in elected office, and by significantly greater campaign spending. At last check Tokuda reported raising $528,000 as of July 24 and had $90,000 on hand. She loaned her campaign $25,000.
Branco reported raising $153,000 and had $33,000 on hand.
>> Also in the 2nd Congressional District, which covers rural Oahu and the neighbor islands, other Democratic candidates were Nicole Gi, Brendan Schultz, Steven Sparks and Kyle Yoshida. None received more than 6% of the vote in the first printout.
Joe Akana easily took the Republican primary over Joseph Webster, and now faces an uphill battle against Tokuda.
Michelle Tippens was the only candidate on the Libertarian slate.
>> In the 1st Congressional District’s Democratic primary, Case far outpaced progressive candidate Sergio Alcubilla at the second printout by almost 70 percentage points.
In the Republican runoff, Conrad Kress claimed nearly half of the votes, beating out Arturo Reyes and Patrick Largey.
Among nonpartisan candidates, Calvin Griffin and Steven Abkin divided a few hundred votes.
>> In the primary runoffs for Senate, Schatz far outpaced Steve Tataii, his one Democratic challenger, by more than 80 percentage points.
On the Republican side, state Rep. Bob McDermott (Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point) was well ahead at the second printout. Other candidates were Steven Bond, Wallyn Christian, Timothy Dalhouse and Asia Lavonne.
The remaining primary candidates were Feena Bonoan (Libertarian), Dan Decker (Aloha Aina) and Emma Jane Pohlman (Green).
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