Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi Reelected By Wide Margin
UPDATED: Scott Nishimoto, a longtime House representative, won the council seat that Calvin Say is vacating. Council member Esther Kiaaina was reelected to her Kailua seat.
Editor’s note:听These results have been updated as of 7:15 a.m. Sunday. Percentages have been adjusted to eliminate blank and over votes.
Facing no serious opposition, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi was handily reelected in the primary election Saturday, garnering 78% of the vote, results released Sunday morning show.
Blangiardi, a former football coach and TV news executive, rallied the crowd at his downtown watch party Saturday night.
鈥淚t鈥檚 just one of those nights where you look forward to it, you anticipate it. Now the reality of it just feels great,鈥 Blangiardi said.
Blangiardi did not hold elected office before being elected mayor in 2020. Then, he faced a crowded field, including attorney and former nonprofit leader Keith Amemiya, council member Kimberly Pyne, former Honolulu mayor Mufi Hanneman and former U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa.
The competition was thinner this year. Challenging Blangiardi were realtor and frequent City Council testifier Choon James, metal worker Karl Dicks and Duke Bourgoin.
Blangiardi鈥檚 campaign spent $800,000 between January and July 26, the most recently available data. None of his challengers spent more than $2,000 during the same time.
James received 14.3% of the vote, while Dicks and Bourgoin each got less than 4% of the vote.
Blangiardi will win the election outright because he got more than 50% of the vote in the primary.
This year was different than the hotly contested 2020 race. Blangiardi said that鈥檚 because of his administration鈥檚 strong performance in its first term spearheading more affordable housing development, starting new programs to treat homeless people and making progress on the rail system Skyline.
Entering his second term, Blangiardi will have his work cut out for him.
In an interview before the primary, he said that he will get 1,000 homeless people off the street within a year. He promised to reduce the long waiting times for residential construction permits to two to four weeks by mid-March. He needs to name a location for the city鈥檚 new municipal landfill by the end of 2024, and there are plans to open the next segment of Skyline by the end of 2025.
Public trust in government is low, Blangiardi said. High-profile corruption cases from before he was mayor and a shortage of city workers to perform basic tasks like maintaining parks and staffing the police department are some of the barriers he has to overcome to restore that trust, he said.
鈥淭he notions of building back trust and creating hope in the community are the reason why I鈥檓 messaging the way we鈥檙e messaging now,鈥 Blangiardi said, referencing his campaign spending despite a lack of serious competitors.
Most of the other city officials up for election either faced no opposition or little-known candidates without much funding.
Prosecutor Steve Alm and council members Radiant Cordero, Andria Tupola and Augie Tulba were reelected with no challengers. They each can serve one more four-year term.
Two council seats were contested: District 5, which stretches between Kaimuki and Kakaako, and District 3, from Waimanalo to Heeia.
Council member Calvin Say currently holds District 5, but he chose not to run for reelection after a decades-long career in elected office, including as House speaker.
In District 5, Rep. Scott Nishimoto defeated political newcomer Brendan Schultz, who lacked the name recognition and financial resources that Nishimoto held as longtime chair of state construction project funding in the House Finance Committee.
As of Sunday morning, Nishimoto had 71.1% of the vote, and Schultz had 18.5%.
Nishimoto had said a reason for the switch from the Legislature to the City Council is that a lot of the issues that most concern his constituents are under city jurisdiction.
In Kailua, council member Esther Kiaaina was reelected, widely outpacing her challengers. With 85% of the vote counted, she had 58.2% of the vote, compared to 17.9% for David Kauahikaua, a music producer, and 17.8% for Kelsey Nakanelua, a former Navy officer and Olympian who has criticized Kiaaina for her role transferring city property to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
