Hawaii holds its primary tonight, and our
guide to the key races can be found here. Polls close 9 PM PT (12 AM ET) in competitive races for US Senate, governor, and the First Congressional District. Here's the place to make predictions and talk about the results.
Results: AP
9:02 PM PT (David Nir): VA State Senate: Here's some crummy news to whet your appetite as we wait on Hawaii's results. Virginia state Rep. Rosalyn Dance—one of two Democratic legislators who threatened to help the GOP pass its outrageous (and subsequently torpedoed) re-redistricting scheme last year—won a party caucus for a vacant state Senate seat tonight. In a real insult, the seat she'll take over belonged to Henry Marsh, the civil rights veteran whose temporary absence from Richmond to attend Obama's inauguration allowed Republicans to ram through their redistricting plan in the first place. It looks like several candidates from Richmond split the vote, allowing Dance, who is from Petersburg, to win a plurality. Sucky.
9:10 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Polls have closed out in Hawaii. We do know that a couple of polling places were impacted by Tropical Storm Iselle, but it seems somewhat unlikely that these will play a decisive role in the outcome, since the bulk of the state population lies elsewhere.
9:28 PM PT (David Nir): Turnout is up a huge 12 percent compared to 2012's primary. The AP has a breakdown by county:
— 34.5 percent in Maui.
— 25.8 percent in Kauai.
— 11 percent in Honolulu.
— 1.6 percent in Hawaii County.
9:29 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Get comfy, kids:
9:54 PM PT (Steve Singiser): The good news—it looks like this first vote dump from Hawaii will be a large one. Looks like it will be over 100,000 votes, measuring out to be about a third of the total votes counted tonight. So, we will probably have a good idea in the next 10 minutes of so where things stand.
10:00 PM PT (Steve Singiser): First results are coming in via Tweets from Hawaii's Civil Beat. In the HI-Sen (D) race, it's as close as they come: Hanabusa 49, Schatz 47. In HI-Gov (D), on the other hand, it is a wipeout. Ige leads Abercrombie 66-31. In HI-01, Mark Takai has a solid lead, with 44 percent of the vote.
10:07 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Numbers are starting to appear via AP. The numbers are the same, but the percentages are a bit different, because (annoyingly) Hawaii's vote totals include the undervotes in the results. So, rather than it being 49-47 Hanabusa, it is actually 50-48 Hanabusa.
Meanwhile, in HI-01 (D), you have Mark Takai with a big lead, leading Donna Mercado-Kim 45-27. Stanley Chang is a distant third (11 percent).
10:11 PM PT (David Nir): HI-Sen: Well, this ain't good:
schatz's camp had seemed very confident they'd have an edge in early votes they could bank on. trailing by 2 pts can't be what they'd hoped.
— @cam_joseph
10:12 PM PT (Steve Singiser): For the sake of completeness (if not interest), the three races we are following on the Democratic side also had primaries on the GOP side. All three all, for all intents and purposes, done deals. It will be former Lt. Gov Duke Aiona as the GOP nominee for Governor (AP hasn't called it, but he has 97 percent of the vote), Cam Cavasso as the GOP nominee for the US Senate (he leads with 72 percent of the vote), and former Rep. Charles Djou attempting a comeback in HI-01 (he also has 97 percent of the vote).
10:15 PM PT (Steve Singiser): HI-Sen/HI-01: And, just like that, the AP declares for Cavasso and Djou. Inexplicably, leading with 97% of the vote for governor apparently ain't good enough for Aiona!
10:22 PM PT (Steve Singiser): HI-01: We've only seen one vote dump, but AP has evidently seen enough. They put the check mark beside the name of Democrat Mark Takai, who will go on to face Republican Charles Djou in November.
10:25 PM PT (David Nir): Apparently they do this hourly:
Next Hawaii vote printout expected at 8 PM Hawaii time (2 AM Eastern), per @chadblairCB
— @DKElections
10:56 PM PT (David Nir): HI-Gov: The Democratic primary has been called for state Sen. David Ige, who defeats Gov. Neil Abercrombie by a punishing margin (currently up 67-32 statewide). It's one of the worst primary losses for a sitting governor in recent memory. Ige will now face Republican Duke Aiona and Democrat-turned-independent Mufi Hanneman in the general election.
11:11 PM PT (David Nir): HI-Sen: Not much change in the only race we're still watching, and also, this update only includes another 18,000 votes:
2nd printout: Hanabusa 49.5%. Schatz 47.1% #HIsen
— @CivilBeat
11:20 PM PT (David Nir): Turning over the liveblog to sapelcovits, who conveniently is on Japan time, where it's already three days from now.
11:25 PM PT (sapelcovits): Thanks, David! We already have the results here in the future, but I promise not to spoil it for the rest of you. Taking a look downballot, Lt. Gov Shan Tsutsui was thought to be in trouble when he ascended to his position following Schatz's appointment to the Senate, but he's easily turning back State Sen. Clayton Hee, 54-36.
11:39 PM PT (sapelcovits): A lot of state representatives who voted against the state's gay marriage bill last year were thought to be vulnerable to primary challenges, but it was not to be: all of the nay-voting Dems are currently cruising in their primaries, with the narrowest margin being State Rep. Justin Woodson's 55-45 lead in HD-09. That said, State Rep. Rida Cabanilla, who opposed the bill but did not vote, is losing 64-36. Also, State Rep. Faye Hanohano, who supported the bill, is getting thwomped by a 44-20 margin, and is only 7% above the fourth-place finisher. Ouch!
Sun Aug 10, 2014 at 12:03 AM PT (sapelcovits): Hope your hats are hung securely on your heads:
Sun Aug 10, 2014 at 1:10 AM PT (sapelcovits): HI-Sen: For the first time all night, Schatz has finally inched ahead of Hanabusa, by a little under 2,000 votes. Remember, though, this is still anybody's game, especially with those Big Island precincts that didn't get to vote due to the storm.
Sun Aug 10, 2014 at 2:19 AM PT (sapelcovits): HI-Sen: The final Election Day update leaves Schatz ahead by about 1,700 votes. With the storm-affected precincts out and absentees remaining to count, this doesn't look like it will be decided tonight, but Schatz is in a pretty good position.
There is, however, one clear loser: polls. Given Hawaii's history, it's not at all surprising, but the two major polls, the Civil Beat poll and Star-Advertiser poll, both predicted a comfortable margin either way. Though Civil Beat did have Schatz winning, their 49-41 margin looks to be quite off.
Sun Aug 10, 2014 at 8:27 AM PT (James L): HI-Sen: The Star-Advertiser takes a look at the outstanding ballots:
Election officials still need to tabulate votes from two Puna polling sites that were closed as a result of roads damaged by Tropical Storm Iselle, affecting about 8,000 registered voters. Chief Elections Officer Scott Nago said ballots would be mailed to those who did not vote prior to Saturday by mail or walk-in and voters would have several days to return them.
With neither side declaring victory (or conceding), we're left with the highly unusual situation where both sides will be actively courting votes that have yet to be cast in order to seal the deal. Still, the math looks very daunting for Hanabusa at this point.