Just 1,782 Votes Separated Schatz from Hanabusa
The U.S. senator took the Big Island and Oahu, while the U.S. representative won Maui and Kauai.
A political junkie friend of mine said Colleen Hanabusa should spend the next two years shaking hands across the state and telling them this number: 1,769.
That’s to remind voters of just how close her race was with Brian Schatz, and the seat is up again in 2016.
It turns on that聽the U.S. representative lost to the U.S. senator聽by 1,782 votes in a race that saw nearly聽230,000 votes total cast for the two candidates.
The earlier figure of 1,769 was the margin of victory after the Aug. 15 make-up primary in Puna, but the total was not certified.
Colleen Hanabusa and Brian Schatz in the KITV studio for a debate.
PF Bentley/Civil Beat
Now it’s a done deal and will stand, since聽electoral challenges have been rejected.
Brian Evans, the other Democrat in the primary, picked up a total of 4,842 votes.
Wonder if things would have been different had the Las Vegas crooner with a聽Keaau address had not been in the mix.
Also of note:聽3,842 ballots were left blank.
Comparing the counties, Schatz edged Hanabusa on the Big Island and received聽2,139 more nods on heavily populated Oahu.
But Hanabusa narrowly defeated Schatz on Maui and beat him by 635 votes on Kauai.
