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The garden aisle: The Sunshine Blog has been doing some math this week, mainly putting 2 + 2 together when it comes to political events of note.

That’s added up to a safe bet that in 2026 Kauai County Mayor Derek Kawakami will be filing for the Kauai Senate seat now held by his buddy, Senate President Ron Kouchi.

The Blog reported last month that Kouchi was promoting a fundraiser for Kawakami at The Pacific Club. It wasn’t clear at the time exactly which office Kawakami might aspire to, although the hunch was that it would be Kouchi’s own seat.

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That turned out to be the case. Kawakami, who is in his second and final term as Kauai mayor, Tuesday night at The Pacific Club for Senate District 8, the seat Kouchi has held since 2015.

It’s unlikely that Kawakami would run against his friend so it seems pretty clear that Kouchi is ready to leave the Senate. Since he never returns The Blog’s calls we’re unable to tell you what he might say about it.

Crashing the party: The Blog was pleasantly surprised to see an independent candidate — called nonpartisan here in Hawaii — has made it to the general election.

Hawaii politics has long been dominated by the Democratic Party and those folks have made it really hard for independent candidates to get any traction, unlike in many other states where allegiance to a political party is not required to get elected. A few Republicans manage to get elected now and then, but rarely does a third-party or nonpartisan candidate get into office.

requires nonpartisan candidates running in a Hawaii primary get either 10% of the total votes cast for that race in order to go on to the general election, or a vote equal to the lowest vote received by a partisan candidate in the same race. Strange but true!

But it turns out that Randall Kelly Meyer, a candidate in Congressional District 2, pulled in 580 votes in the Aug. 10 primary. That beat the 361 votes earned by Libertarian Aaron Toman, and so Meyer is now on the Nov. 5 general election ballot along with Toman (who advanced because he belongs to an established party) and Democratic incumbent Jill Tokuda and Republican Steve Bond (ditto).

That doesn’t mean Meyer will get elected to Congress. Fat chance. Tokuda received nearly 85,000 votes in the primary, which is four times more than the votes for Meyer, Toman and Bond combined. Such is the dominance of Hawaii Democrats.

Practically perfect in every way: Speaking of Democrats and Tokuda, nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause , which tracks how every member of Congress did when it comes to supporting voting rights, Supreme Court ethics and other reforms.  

Hawaii was one of eight states where both U.S. senators — that would be — earned perfect scores. Meanwhile, our two U.S. representatives, Ed Case and Jill Tokuda, had “near perfect” scores.

Why weren’t they perfect?

Common Cause says Case the Supreme Court Ethics Act, the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act or the Judicial Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act. And Tokuda received a “thumbs down” for not voting to include on the U.S. Census.

Curtain raiser: Sure, Hawaii’s Aug. 10 primary was a bit of a snooze, unless you are one of the several incumbents that lost. But there are a couple of interesting takeaways that have just surfaced, thanks to a new report from the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission.

The Blog recently reported that Scott Saiki raised more than $348,000 in his loss to Kim Coco Iwamoto in House District 25. Now, Tony Baldomero, the commission’s associate director, says the soon-to-be-former speaker also set a record for spending in a House race: $301,000.

To put that in perspective, consider that the winners of House races spend on average just $45,000 in their campaigns.

The candidates receiving the largest amount of financial contributions also included Saiki, who finished behind Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi in that category but ahead of Hawaii County Mayor Mitch Roth, Honolulu City Councilwoman Andria Tupola and Scott Nishimoto, a state representative on Oahu who was elected to the City Council.

Baldomero told commissioners Wednesday that he could not remember the last time a Honolulu mayor’s race was settled in the primary rather than the general election. But Blangiardi faced no serious competition.

One other item illustrating just how uncompetitive the primary was: Hawaii super PACs only spent $50,000 in support of candidates, and it was Saiki who got the largest chunk ($13,000). When Blangiardi ran four years ago, where he faced a crowded primary field and was forced into a runoff, Baldomero said super PACs spent $1.4 million on Blangiardi’s behalf. Most of it came from Be Change Now, which has ties to the carpenters union.