Once the Hawaii County Polls closed at 7:30, the State released its first set of results. The first printout traditionally includes mostly absentee votes, either those mailed in or those voters who voted during Early Voting at the three Hawaii Island sites. There are no votes included from those who voted on Hawaii Island today.
The Mayor race in the first printout shows incumbent Mayor Billy Kenoi with 7,627 votes, or 43.3% of the vote. Former Mayor Harry Kim has 6.111 votes, or 34.7%. In third, County Council Chair Dominic Yagong has 18.3%, or 3,233 votes. The other three candidates–Share Christie, Daniel Cunningham, and Rand (Baker Tom) Walls, had 373 votes among them. At this point, if the trend continues, Mayor Kenoi and former Mayor Kim will face each other in a runoff in the Tuesday, November 6 race.
In some other key races, Lincoln Ashida is solidly ahead of the second place candidate, Mitch Roth, in the race for County Prosecutor. Ashida has 8,999 votes, or 51.1%, to Roth’s 5,142, or 29.2%. The third candidate, Paul Dolan, brought in 2,143 votes, or 12.2%. If Ashida maintains his greater-than-50% vote, he will be the new County Prosecutor.
Councilmember for District 1, Hamakua: Valerie Poindexter has 35.3%, with 657 votes, to second place Chelsea Yagong (Dominic’s 27-year-old daughter), who has 515 votes, or 27.7%.
In Hilo’s District 2, J Yoshimoto has 55.6% of the votes, or 1,720. Second place Ken Goodenow has 734 votes, or only 23.7%. Yoshimoto looks like a winner, if this trend holds in future ballots.
Hilo’s District 3 has only one candidate, Dennis (Fresh) Onishi, and he has 2,702 votes, with 799 blank votes.
District 4 is one of two Puna Council Districts. Incumbent Fred Blas has 710 votes, or 40%, to Greggor Ilagan’s 28.8% or 511. James Weatherford is only slightly behind Ilagan with 49 votes, or 27.5%. The top two finishers, if nobody gets 50%, will go on to the General.
District 5, the new Council District for Puna, has Zendo Kern with 69.4%, or 1,194 votes. His opponents, Steven J. Araujo and Lising Ceredon have 364 votes between them.
District 6, the new South Kona to Volcano District, has Brenda Ford at 48.2%, or 898 votes, and Maile Medeiros David at 570 votes, or 30.6%. If Ford does not get 50%, she and David will go on to the General.
District 7 had only one candidate, Dru Mamo Kanuha, who so far has 69.8% of the votes, 893.
North Kona’s Council District 8 has Karen Eoff with 68.3%, or 1269 votes. Her opponent, Charles Guccione, has 19.9% of the votes, 369.
District 9, Waimea-Kohala, has Oliver (Sonny) Shimaoka with 34.6% of the votes, or 235. His closest opponent, Margaret Wille, is close behind, with 214 votes, or 31.5%. It looks likely that they will go to runoff.
In other races, U. S. Congress Candidate Tulsi Gabbard appears to have soundly defeated her opponent, former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann. And in the U. S Senate Race, Linda Lingle, as expected got most of the Republican vote. On the Democratic side, Mazie Hirono has defeated former Congressman Ed Case, with Hirono getting more than 58,000 votes to Case’s 41,000 votes. Hirono will face Lingle in the General Election.
Hawaii County’s next set of results may come as early as 10 p.m. The final results are not expected until after midnight.
