According to reporting from the Honolulu Advertiser, Republican Charles Djou, as expected, won the HI-01 special election to replace Democrat Neil Abercrombie with 39.5% of the vote. However he will be likely be a temporary caretaker of the seat until the fall election in November as the two democrats in the race combined for almost 60%. In November, Djou won't be so lucky to face a divided democratic party. More interestingly, Colleen Hanabusa finished in a strong second with almost 31% of the vote. The blue dogish Ed Case finished with just under 28%.
Hanabusa, the president of the State Senate, is the more liberal of the two democrats. Case served in the House of Representatives from 2002-2006 representing HI-02 until he left to mount a losing challenge to senator Daniel Akaka in the democratic primary. Pre election polling had Hanabusa consistently in third place, leading Washington democrats to try to convince her to drop her bid for the seat, so that the supposedly more electable Case could win the seat. The Hawai'i local democratic officials, led by Senators Akaka and Inouye backed Hanabusa and I wonder what would have happened if the DCCC hadn't got involved with Case? What if they had supported the better democrat from the start? In any event it looks that Hanabusa will be in the driver's seat for both the democratic nomination and for the general come November.
Republicans are predictably going to crow about winning this election - even though their candidate got less than 40% and only won because there were two strong democrats in the race. Had this been a head to head, there is no doubt Djou would have lost and lost big. On the bright side, add this to Cao's seat as seats we are almost certain to pick up come November.
UPDATE: The official results are here.