Mason-Dixon for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin/KITV (1/8-12, registered voters):
Neil Abercrombie (D): 43
Duke Aiona (R): 34
Undecided: 23Mufi Hannemann (D): 41
Duke Aiona (R): 35
Undecided: 24
(MoE: ±3.5%)
I expected Abercrombie to be a bit more formidable than this, although these are by no means bad numbers. Aiona, however, has stockpiled a lot money for this race, and he’s pretty well-liked: his favorable rating is 41-19, quite a bit higher than Abercrombie’s 36-29 and a shade better than Hannemann’s 38-22.
The Democratic primary, too, looks like it will be a very competitive affair:
Neil Abercrombie (D): 37
Mufi Hannemann (D): 34
Undecided: 29
(MoE: ±4.5%)
I wonder if Abercrombie expected to face such a stiff fight — but in any case, I’m sure he’s relieved to be done with all the plane rides to and from DC. SSP currently rates this race as Lean Democratic.
Now, for some good news (and bad news) from the 1st District race to fill Abercrombie’s seat:
Ed Case (D): 37
Colleen Hanabusa (D): 25
Charles Djou (R): 17
Undecided: 21
(MoE: ±5%)
The good news, of course, is that the highly-touted Charles Djou is lagging in third place in a race against not one, but two Democrats (Hawaii has a pretty strange special election situation, where everyone runs against everyone with no runoffs). The bad news, of course, is that the extremely unacceptable Ed Case has the early lead. It’s too bad we can’t see crosstabs, here, because I would love to see how many Republicans and independents Case is taking away from Djou. I’m suspecting that Case is sucking up a lot of oxygen on the right-leaning side of the political equation here.
Djou’s fundraising is way overhyped, since it took him two years to raise $265k.
It’s unfortunate that the opportunist Case is winning, though.
Is HI-1 more conservative than HI-2 as I assume or is this wrong? Either way I am more worried about the re-election of a guy like Steve Chabot or Steve Pearce than I am Ed Case, he’s not the great Satan or anything.
in the special election, the person with the most votes wins, no matter what. It’s a system shared by Hawaii and by Washington DC special elections.
Hanabusa ran for Congress twice, but Case actually was a congressman, ran for governor, and for senate. And yeah, it’s obvious Djou’s base has abandoned him for Case. In which case (sorry for the pun), it’s definitely a good thing Abercrombie resigned early because otherwise Case would probably be further ahead of Hanabusa at this point in time.
Give Hanabusa time to consolidate the Democratic vote and she should win easy.