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Peter Carlisle’s winning streak is still going strong. The 57-year-old former prosecutor is the City and County of Honolulu’s mayor elect, after earning 38.7 percent of Honolulu voters’ support in Saturday night’s winner-take-all special election. The win marks his fifth-straight victory in Honolulu elections.

“This is very exciting,” Carlisle told about 100 supporters outside of his Ward Avenue headquarters after the final results were returned after 11 p.m. “The work from everybody from start to finish has been amazing … The hard stuff starts tomorrow. There’s only one thing you need to know about what’s going to happen, and that’s change city hall and make it a whole lot better.”

Carlisle will serve the final two years of former Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s term. Hannemann stepped down in July to run for governor, but lost the democratic nomination to former Congressman Neil Abercrombie.

Acting mayor Kirk Caldwell, also 57, trailed Carlisle with 34.6 percent of votes. The loss means Caldwell’s two months as actor mayor will — in two weeks — come to an end.

Engineer Panos Prevedouros, 48, drew 18.9 percent of votes. His showing is a tiny improvement over his first run for mayor in 2008. In that primary, he received 17.2 percent of the vote for a campaign similarly aimed at halting the city’s $5.5 billion rail project. City Councilman Rod Tam earned 1.4 percent of votes.

Throughout a whirlwind campaign, Carlisle repeatedly emphasized the importance of getting Honolulu’s “financial house in order,” and promised to conduct a thorough audit of the city’s fiscal operations as one of his first steps. Before he can tackle the city’s financial woes, Carlisle will have to develop a transition strategy. Carlisle said he’s working with Bob Fishman — a former city official and former head of the Hawaii Tourism Authority — on how best to move into the mayor’s office.

“I want to try to work on transparency to the greatest extent humanly possible,” Carlisle said. “If we’re transparent, ultimately we’re going to be able to change things for the better.”

Transparency goals notwithstanding, Carlisle says it’s premature to discuss specific leadership choices.

“I’ve heard him make statements that it’s not going to be a wholesale change right away, but how he is going to deal with it, I don’t know,” said City Council Chairman Todd Apo. “I expect there to be more transition, though I don’t know how much.”

The soonest Carlisle can be sworn in is Oct. 8, after a 20-day period left open for challenges to election results. Earlier this week, he expressed concerns about having to wait until then to take office.

“I would love for it to be Monday,” Carlisle said. “What is the legal ramification of having a mayor-elect but not having that person [in office]?”

City Clerk Bernice Mau said it’s required that there be an opportunity for the election to be called into question if necessary.

“If it gets challenged, they have to file with the court and then the judge will hear the case and decide,” Mau said. “After 20 days, they’re safe, nobody can challenge their candidacy.”

Missed opportunities

Caldwell’s chance to be mayor was shortlived. He served as acting mayor for nearly two months since Hannemann stepped down, and he wasn’t ready to give up the leadership post.

“It’s been an emotional roller coaster,” Caldwell told supporters after the second batch of results was returned. “I was down in the polls by 24 percent a couple of months ago. Now it’s very close. I owe it to the voters to see what happens and what the final count is and go from there.”

With tears in his eyes, Caldwell said he was still “trying to be hopeful” before the final results were released. Once that happened, Caldwell said he would walk over to his opponent’s headquarters — a couple of blocks down the road.

When Caldwell arrived, Carlisle was facing television cameras, and his supporters shouted, “Behind you! Look behind you!”

Visibly surprised to see his opponent, Carlisle shook Caldwell’s hand, and the two introduced each other to their wives. When Caldwell walked away minutes later, he was again close to tears. Prevedouros, too, expressed disappointment when asked via phone about his loss. It was the engineer’s second campaign, following an unsuccessful bid for mayor in 2008.

“I am sort of OK,” Prevedouros said after the second round of results made it clear he would not win the race. “I was planning to feel a little more jovial, but the numbers are what they are.”

But Prevedouros is not deterred from his long-term goal, and says a run for mayor in 2012 is “essentially a guarantee.” He said he’s still committed to preventing elevated rail in Honolulu, and explained that having Abercrombie and Carlisle helm state and city government is “much better” than the Hannemann and Caldwell alternative.

“The anti-rail vote didn’t come in as support for Panos but it came in as an ousting Mufi and Caldwell,” Prevedouros said. “The rail has a harder time this way.”

While Prevedouros describes Carlisle as preferable to Caldwell, he won’t go so far as to envsion himself working with the new mayor.

“Now that I have declared that I will run against him, I don’t think I will ever work with him,” Prevedouros said.

Prevedouros plans to take the next couple of days off, and said he is looking forward to a trip to a Navy aircraft carrier tomorrow for an overnight stay.

The Road to the Mayor’s Office

Carlisle held what looked like a strong lead throughout the duration of the special election. Officially, it spanned less than nine weeks since former Mayor Mufi Hannemann resigned to run for governor on July 20. The first forum in which candidates publicly gathered to address their positions on city issues was 11 days before that on July 9.

From the start, Carlisle had name recognition on his side. Polling favored Carlisle throughout the election — in early August, a Honolulu Star-Advertiser poll found he had 49 percent of participating voters’ support — but by a narrower margin as election day neared. A Civil Beat poll conducted 10 days before the primary election found Carlisle with 37 percent of the vote, compared to Caldwell with 30 percent, Prevedouros with 20 percent and others or undecided votes making up the rest.

While it looked like Caldwell gained momentum toward the end of the campaign, ultimately it wasn’t enough. The single notable negative ad of the mayoral race was one paid for by the Caldwell campaign, aimed at making Carlisle look bad. It challenged the financial platform on which Carlilse ran by bringing up testimony in which Carlisle complained about not getting incremental pay raises. Carlisle also had difficulty defending himself on this issue in the last televised debate of the mayoral race.

“Our campaign was run all factually,” Caldwell said when asked about the negative ad on election night. “It’s about dealing with issues and facts — the give and take is something people need to see to make their decision.”

As in 2008, Prevedouros’ major campaign platform was his opposition to the city’s $5.5 billion rail project. Polling showed Prevedouros’ voters — 61 percent of them according to Civil Beat’s September poll — saw rail as the most important issue, whereas only 15 percent of Caldwell’s supporters and 7 percent of Carlisle’s supporters prioritized rail.

Even a substantial amount of campaign spending couldn’t secure the win for Caldwell. He outraised and subsequently outspent his opponents, raising $970,247 through the latest campaign finance filing on Sept. 14.

Caldwell earned and spent nearly twice as much as Carlisle, who racked up $530,800 in donations through Sept. 14. Prevedouros pulled in $167,570 during that time, including more than $29,000 in late-stage donations from Sept. 4 – Sept. 14.

“When you are outspent 7 to 1, you can’t get closer to victory,” Prevedouros said. “Next time, we have to work on our finances. The priority will be finances first, then the message, instead of the other way around.”

Even in the nonpartisan mayoral race, party politics were also a likely factor. Caldwell openly describes himself as a “lifelong Democrat,” and Prevedouros makes his Republican loyalties clear. Carlisle spent much of the campaign minimizing a previous affiliation to the Republican party. In turn, the Republican party urged voters to get behind Prevedouros. The week before the primary, former Congressman Ed Case sent out a statement asking Prevedouros’ supporters to choose Carlisle, expressing concern that a split vote could enable Caldwell to win.

The Civil Beat poll suggested Caldwell would get more support from Democrats, while Carlisle would draw more Independent backing. Results detailing the distribution of votes by precinct will likely be available Sunday.

Looking ahead

With the winning results posted, one of Carlisle’s closest advisers smoked a Cuban cigar among supporters outside.

“It’s a tradition,” Jim Fulton explained with a smile. “I’ve done this five times now.”

Mayor-elect Carlisle said he’s ready to get to work. He’ll take Sunday morning off, but then dive right into transitional planning.

“You can’t go into something assuming you know all the facts,” Carlisle said. “So you have to make a point of finding out exactly how things are run, seeing if people have ideas on how to make things more efficient, and basically deal with the people who are ready to do the job but ready to do it better than they’re doing it now.”