National Democrats may end up abandoning the HI-01 special election, the Associated Press reports — potentially ceding a seat to the Republicans that President Obama carried with 70% of the vote — due to the vote-splitting of the two Democratic candidates, former Rep. Ed Case and state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa.
“It’s an extremely difficult race, since two Democratic candidates are splitting the vote,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). “The local Democrats haven’t been able to come together and resolve that, so we’ll have to re-evaluate our participation.”
The TPM Poll Average for the special election shows Republican Honolulu city councilman Charles Djou with 32.3%, Case with 32.0% and Hanabusa with 21.8%. Case is unofficially supported by national Democrats, but they have not been able to official participate other than to attack Republican Charles Djou or vaguely ask voters to pick a Democrat.
Case said in a statement: “I share the obvious frustration of my former colleague, Chris Van Hollen, with the failure of Colleen and her supporters to do the right thing.”
For her part, Hanabusa said in a statement: “With the backing of our enthusiastic volunteers and grassroots support, this campaign continues to move ahead in this race to let the voters of the 1st Congressional District decide their next representative to Congress.”
