The “Anybody But Progressives” (ABP) faction on Maui celebrated mightily this weekend. If not for a last-minute shift in the Haiku-Makawao-Paia council race, the primarily election would have represented a brutal beat-down of progressive candidates throughout the county council and mayoral races.
There has been great reporting by local media on all the races that includes numbers and candidate comments. I am not going to duplicate that information. The Maui News has good precinct analysis here and earlier results, here and here. Maui Now did an excellent job posting instant results here, here, and here and, and Civil Beat weighed in with good details as well.
Nara Boone barely edged past Dave DeLeon into contender position for the Haiku-Makawao-Paia seat currently held by failed mayoral candidate Mike Molina. Progressive Carol Lee Kamekona came in third in the Kahului race, which now features ABP’ers Tasha Kama and Buddy Nobriega in contender positions. Kelly King-backed Robin Knox made it through the South Maui race for King’s council seat, but trails Tom Cook.
It’s barely worth mentioning the Upcountry council race, as progressive-favored Jordan Hocker made it through, but with only 7,517 votes to Yuki Lei Sugimura’s 20,360. That’s as of the third voting report issued by the Hawaii Election Commission. The final summary has yet to be issued.
What happened to Kelly King?
Jordan Hocker’s vote count was still higher than that of mayoral contender Kelly King, who progressives hoped would move on to the November 8th general election. However, King’s third place finish was not as much of a surprise as the anemic number of votes she garnered. King received 6,350 votes for mayor, a distant third to Mayor Michael Victorino, who drew 11,747 votes and Richard Bissen’s frontrunning 13,407 votes.
King’s number is shocking. In her November, 2020 County Council race, she received 34,155 votes, the second highest of the contested races. First place belonged to Michael Molina, who drew 41,233 votes in 2020 for his council seat (more than the 39,493 votes cast in the entire 2022 Maui primary). This year, he finished the mayoral primary in fifth place, with only 2,068 votes.
King was a great candidate, smart and possibly more well-versed on the issues than either Victorino or Bissen. She received warm praise from colleagues such as Maui County Council chair Alice Lee. Lee doesn’t always vote the same way as King, but spoke up on her value as a candidate during Akaku community television’s election returns program on Saturday night.
King’s results may not have as much to do with her as a candidate, as with the timing of her mayoral run.
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