Ed Case, Jill Tokuda win Democratic primary races for U.S. House

U.S. Rep. Ed Case had an overwhelming lead over challenger state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole in Saturday’s Democratic Party primary to represent urban Honolulu in Congress.

In the first election returns of the night, Case was leading with over 60% of the Democratic vote.

In the Nov. 3 General Election, Case will face Republican Adriel C. Lam, who ran unopposed in the primary, to represent the Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District seat

In the Democratic primary to represent rural Oahu and the neighbor islands in Congress, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda cruised to victory with no high-profile opposition and over 90% of the vote in the early results, which represent a vast majority of the ballots cast. In the Republican Party primary for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional district, unopposed state Sen. Brenton Awa (R, Kaneohe-Laie-Mokuleia) was also headed to the General Election with 100% of the Republican vote.

Awa and Tokuda will face off in the November election for the 2nd Congressional District seat.

Awa has never campaigned for a state office. A Tokuda victory would send her back to Washington, D.C. for her third term in the House.

Neither of Hawaii’s two U.S. senators — Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz — are up for election this year.

Awa’s state Senate seat also is not up for election so a head-to-head showdown against Tokuda in November offers no political risk, should he lose.

Running across the state also has given Awa the opportunity to introduce himself to a wider audience beyond his Senate district. His district stretches from the northern end of Kaneohe, which is a more Democratic community, through the more-conservative, faith-based communities such as Kahuku and Laie, and across the entire North Shore.

Like Awa, Keohokalole’s state Senate seat also is not up for election, so running for Congress this year also gave Keohokalole the opportunity to raise his political profile among urban Honolulu’s 720,000 constituents with little political risk.

Keohokalole’s initial television campaign commercial launched July 5 had a simple goal to help viewers pronounce his name through song, with children singing Keohokalole’s name to the melody of “Aloha Kakahiaka.”

The primary election for Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District gave Democratic voters a choice between Case, a 73-year-old moderate, against Keohokalole, 42, a more-progressive Democrat.

Even before Socialist Democrats began racking up primary victories across the country, The New York Times and Washington Post listed the Case-Keohokalole race as another example of a potential upset of older, moderate candidates losing to younger more progressive challengers.

Some of Case’s positions and votes have angered progressive Democrats in Hawaii who want a more-forceful critic of President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies.

Case has a combined 12 years in Congress and angered progressive Democrats when he became one of only three other House Democrats to join all House Republicans in voting for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which critics say further erodes U.S. voting rights.

But he also voted against Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” along with all other House Democrats.

During the Legislative session that ended in May, Keohokalole joined other progressive Democrats in pushing new bills intended to help identify masked ICE agents and their unmarked vehicles.

But the final version that became state law resulted in merely reducing county and state law enforcement cooperation with the federal immigration crackdown as similar efforts on the mainland failed under court challenges.

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