In Hawaii’s primaries, Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono favored to win third term

On Saturday, Hawaii will end voting in its House and Senate primary elections, where Democratic incumbents are expected to easily win their races and are likely to defeat their challengers in November in this solidly blue state.

Leading the top of the ballot in the Democratic primary for Senate is Sen. Mazie Hirono (D), who is favored to win a third term. Hirono was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2013, and before that represented Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District for six years. She will face salesman Clyde Lewman, who ran in the 2022 gubernatorial primary, and former systems engineer Ron Curtis, who ran against her in 2018 as the Republican candidate for the Senate seat.

Hirono has raised more than $4 million, data from the Federal Election Commission shows. Curtis and Lewman had not reported to the FEC that they had raised any campaign funds.

The Republican primary for the Senate seat is a crowded race with six candidates, including former state representative Bob McDermott. McDermott was a member of Hawaii’s House of Representatives from 1996 to 2002 and then again from 2012 to 2022, when he ran against the incumbent, Sen. Brian Schatz (D), in the general election for the U.S. Senate seat.

Of the six Republican candidates on the ballot, only McDermott and Adriel Lam, a veteran who ran for a state Senate seat in 2022, had raised funds as of Thursday evening, FEC data shows. The other candidates are paralegal Melba Amaral, attorney Paul Dolan, attorney Emmanuel Tipon and Arturo Reyes, who has previously run for a U.S. Senate seat as a nonpartisan candidate.

In Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District, incumbent Rep. Ed Case, who has held the seat since 2019, faces Cecil Hale in the Democratic primary. Case first served in Congress from 2002 to 2007, representing the state’s 2nd Congressional District. In the Republican primary, Patrick Largey is running unopposed.

In Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District, both Rep. Jill Tokuda (D), who is seeking her second term, and Republican Steve Bond are running unopposed in their primaries. In 2022, Bond had an unsuccessful run in Hawaii’s Republican primary for a Senate seat.