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HONOLULU – How Democratic is Hawaii? Consider the case of Kurt Fevella.
A Hawaii state senator, Fevella is the sole Republican in his chamber, serving with 24 Democrats. As a result, Fevella – a former middle school custodian who was elected to the Senate in 2018 and 2020 – is always busy. He fulfills the roles of Senate minority leader and Senate floor leader, and he serves on no fewer than 16 legislative committees.
Across the airy state capitol, the House is almost as Democratic-dominated as the Senate is: It has 47 Democrats and only four Republicans.
Nationally, the Democratic Party may be bracing for a difficult midterm election this year, with a high likelihood of losing control of one or both chambers of Congress. But in Hawaii, the party’s outlook is much brighter – although in a way that differs from other solidly blue states.
In Hawaii, the Democratic Party’s dominance makes it a big-tent party. This makes its ideological center of gravity relatively moderate, enabling establishment politicians to resist the kinds of progressive revolts seen in many other strongly blue states.
Meanwhile, labor unions remain influential in Hawaii, making the state party look more like a midwestern Democratic Party from a half-century ago – economically liberal, socially moderate and popular among blue-collar voters. Hawaii’s Democratic Party is “kind of old-fashioned New Deal party,” says Colin Moore, a University of Hawaii political scientist.
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Hawaii is also a state where party identification is malleable. As the Republican Party has become less and less able to win office in Hawaii – especially during the Trump era, which has been a poor fit with this highly diverse state – a flurry of Republicans have switched their party affiliation. Many have won office as Democrats and, despite ideological differences, have been welcomed by their new peers.
For instance, Mike Gabbard, a leading voice against same-sex marriage (and the father of former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard), switched from Republican to Democrat and was named chairman of the Senate Agriculture and Environment Committee. Aaron Johanson, the former House Republican leader, switched parties and now heads the House Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee. State Sen. Gil Riviere and former state Rep. Kymberly Marcos Pine also changed their affiliations to Democrat. Charles Djou, the last Republican to represent Hawaii in Congress, has become an independent. Fevella went the other direction, having initially run as a Democrat.
When state Rep. James Tokioka was serving on the Kauai County Council, he was elected as a Republican but later switched parties. When he became a Democrat, “a lot of people in the Democratic Party were arms wide open,” he recalled in an interview at the Capitol. While Tokioka sometimes takes a more fiscally conservative approach than his colleagues do, he says, “I never looked back, and I’m glad I didn’t.”
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State Rep. James Tokioka in the House chamber in Honolulu. (Louis Jacobson for U.S. News)
“It is almost impossible for the minority party to pass any legislation due to the lack of numbers,” says Ted Kefalas, director of strategic campaigns at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a free-market think tank. “That has a ripple effect during election season where Republican legislators often have little to show for their time in office.”
“It’s a vicious circle of doom,” agrees Neal Milner, an emeritus political science professor at the University of Hawaii.
One-party dominance of Hawaii is nothing new, although the dominant party has changed over time.
John Hart, a Hawaii Pacific University political scientist, half-jokingly says that Hawaii has “always been a one-party state – it’s just been a matter of which one. It started with the monarchy, then the republic. As a territory, Hawaii was Republican. Since statehood, it’s been Democratic.”
Prior to statehood, the Republican coalition was largely comprised of “the white sugar oligarchy and Hawaiians who benefited from civil service jobs,” Moore says. Many people of color were left politically powerless.
That changed after World War II, thanks largely to the efforts of an injured, Hawaiian-born veteran of Japanese descent, Daniel Inouye. Inouye, who became a giant of the U.S. Senate, built Hawaii’s Democratic Party into a juggernaut, welcoming people who had been discriminated against, including Hawaii’s indigenous people and the citizen children of Asian immigrants.
Under Inouye’s hands-on leadership, “there was a deep Democratic bench,” says Democratic Lt. Gov. Josh Green. “A lot of people went into politics on his coattails.”
A few additional factors helped carry Hawaii Democrats to their current degree of dominance. In the 1980s, the state ended its system of multi-member legislative districts. The system had enabled the Republicans to win more seats. In 2008, native son Barack Obama ran for president, inspiring Hawaiians and burnishing the Democratic brand locally. And since Trump’s emergence, the state GOP has been beset by infighting.
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Lt. Gov. Josh Green outside his office in the state capitol.(Louis Jacobson for U.S. News)
There’s plenty to tie Democrats together. Action to prevent climate change – an especially urgent issue for this island state – is widely supported. Pro-labor policies remain more popular here than elsewhere. And most everyone agrees on taxing the tourists who come to savor the state’s beauty.
The Hawaiian concept of “ohana,” or family, also helps promote Democratic unity.
“It’s such a small island that everyone knows everyone – and their aunt and cousins,” Kefalas says. “The first question you get is, ‘What high school did you go to?’ Everyone’s interconnected.”
“We’re the Aloha State,” agrees state Rep. Patrick Pihana Branco, a Democrat. “Tension is not our political way. We have our battles. Factions happen. But generally, the populace likes politics when we work together.”
Indeed, in Hawaii, being a “moderate” Democrat is not the scarlet letter it is in other solidly blue states. Progressive Democrats have periodically tried to flex their muscles in Hawaii, and influential state House Speaker Scott Saiki came within 167 votes of losing a primary to Kim Coco Iwamoto in 2020. Still, Hawaii’s Democratic politics lacks the strong leftward tug that other states are seeing. Left-wing groups are “itchy – they are dying to make inroads,” says Chad Blair, a veteran journalist with Honolulu Civil Beat. “But most Democrats who win office are mainstream.”
This moderation has cropped up repeatedly when it comes to public policy. Among blue states, Hawaii was relatively late to fully enact same-sex marriages and medical marijuana, and full marijuana legalization has failed to win passage. Meanwhile, only Utah and Hawaii ban gambling across the board. Some analysts attribute this resistance to the conservative influence of churches, which seem to be on every corner and from every denomination. (One downside of one-party domination is the risk of corruption. In February, former Sen. J. Kalani English and former Rep. Ty Cullen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to a bribery scheme with a wastewater company.)
Generally speaking, Hawaii evades the currents of what dominates political discussion in Washington, D.C., and on cable news. “We’re in the middle of the Pacific, disconnected from the rest of the country,” Hart says. Hawaii Democrats can’t afford to be dismissive of the military, which maintains an enormous economic footprint in the state. And Hawaii, more than most states, has to “be mindful of relations with Korea, Japan, Philippines and China,” Green says.
The state faced a stiff challenge from the coronavirus pandemic. Early on, it imposed the nation’s strictest quarantine requirements – 14 days in isolation. Its stringent policies – and generally high adherence to them – kept the infection rate among the lowest of any state. But the travel slowdown battered Hawaii’s crucial tourism industry: Six months into the pandemic, 1 of every 6 jobs in Hawaii had vanished.
Once vaccinations became available, however, the state became a national vaccination leader, and it built a pre-clearance system for vaccinated travelers that has enabled a robust flow of tourists from the U.S. to return.
“People had missed out on travel for two years, so our higher price point is an easier sell now,” Green says. Officials are now waiting for the tourist flow from Asia to rebound, which would enable a full tourism recovery.
Now, the streets and beaches of Waikiki and popular sites are bustling, with locals and even tourists continuing to wear masks – even outdoors – despite low COVID-19 case counts.
“I’ve never seen a single person inside a store not wearing a mask,” says Moore, the political scientist.
Green, the lieutenant governor, is also a medical doctor, and he became a key public face of the government response to the virus as a result of countless television and radio appearances. He has reaped the political benefits of the state’s relatively smooth handling of the pandemic: He’s been the leading candidate to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. David Ige. He’s also aided by the fact that the state budget is flush, thanks to the federal government’s aid to state governments. But in early April, U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele seemed to be moving toward a gubernatorial bid. He would become a top-tier contender for the nomination along with Green.
As is so often the case in modern-day Hawaii, the governorship is widely expected to be settled in the Aug. 13 Democratic primary. The general election three months later is presumed to be an afterthought.