Hawaii-2 In Play

Earlier this year the special election for Hawaii's 1st congressional district made the news. Charles Djou, the Republican, won, but he only had 39% of the vote. The two Democrats had 58%. So it was widely assumed that when Djou ran against only one Democrat in November he'd lose.

Hawaii has two congressional districts, the 1st in Honolulu, and the 2nd which covers the rest of the state. The districts are Cook D+11 and D+14, respectively. They probably aren't that Democratic. The 1st was D+17 in 2008, but D+5 in 2004. The 2nd was D+20 in 2008, but D+8 in 2004. Barack Obama is a native of Hawaii and he likely got a lot of additional votes that wouldn't normally go to a Democrat. At D+8, Hawaii-2 is probably at the limit of possible Republican pick-ups this year. Republicans are running John Willoughby As of the end of August, he'd only raised $16,000. You can see why no one is watching this race.

A few days ago dailykos/PPP came out with a poll that showed the race virtually tied. This is a bit of a surprise, but nothing much should surprise us this year. After all, Djou is a sitting congressman, has raised a good amount of money, and it's a Republican year.

Duke Alona, the Republican Lt. Governor, has virtually the same percentages in the district.


The closeness of the percentages is a bit eerie, but clearly if you're voting Republican you're voting for both candidates and if you're voting Democrat, you're voting Democrat across the board. dailykos/PPP also came out with a poll covering the entire state. Looking at the number of likely voters surveyed it appears that PPP surveyed a fairly equal number of voters in each district. By knowing the numbers overall and the numbers for Hawaii-1, we can guess the numbers for Hawaii-2 with some confidence.


I've also included the senate race. Daniel Inouye, the long time well respected senator, picks up Alona/Djou voters across the board. He seems to pull in a similar number of Alona Democrats, Republicans, and independents in each district. It's likely that the Alona/Abercrombie voters are doing this in Hawaii-1.


We know that the Alona voter is almost exclusively voting Republican for Congress in Hawaii-1 and will vote about 61%-39% for Cavasso. We've seen that Hawaii-2 is virtually the same in the voting patterns. In fact, the Alona voter is probably 65%-35% for Cavasso.


So we've seen two different Alona voters. The first will vote Alona/Cavasso/Djou and the second will vote Alona/Inouye/Djou. Those two voters seem to be identical in Hawaii-2 voting Alona/Cavasso and Alona/Inouye. As we saw above, the breakdown by party of these two groups is pretty much the same in both districts. In Hawaii-1, they all are voting Djou. Logically, if they're doing that, they are likely to vote Willoughby in Hawaii-2. The Alona voter breaks down almost identically in both districts for their senate vote. They should do the same for House vote.

dailykos/PPP either didn't survey this race or didn't publish the results. Either way I'm betting that this survey would show a tight race if the question were asked. Since dailykos and PPP are both Democratic, we know that they aren't bending the numbers in the Republicans' favor.