Biden's underdiscussed bad performance in Hawaii

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

The state that will swing the furthest to the right in 2020 is not Utah. It's not Florida. It's Hawaii, which will swing nearly 3% to the right.

Biden will be the first Democrat to win Hawaii by less than 30% since John Kerry in 2004.

From 2008-2020, Hawaii has swung 15% to the right.

On top of that, Cook Political says that Hawaii will see the largest votes cast surge compared to 2016, casting 34% more votes in 2020 than in 2016, which indicates that Trump won most new voters,

The sudden GOP shift in Hawaii should worry Dems.

[Tender Branson]

Just noise at a high level.

And I think the China topic might have played a role in HI, because China is „nearby“ and Trump was the candidate to take a tough stance on China ...

[Catalyst138]

Home-state factor helped Obama big-time in Hawaii, so I wouldn’t use 2008 or 2012 as a comparison.

Biden did lose a few points from Hillary, which can probably be explained by the state’s pro-incumbent streak as well as Biden’s general underperformance with minorities.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I don't know why anybody was expecting Hawaii to continue voting for Dems at Obama-era levels. It will probably never revert to 2004 levels of quasi-competitiveness either, so I don't understand why we're supposed to fret about it. Same thing with people who are in full panic mode because California didn't quite replicate its absurd Democratic overperformance from 2016.

[AndyHogan14]

When the Hawai'i State Legislature looks like this...

I'm not overly worried. In fact, I believe Democrats actually gained an extra seat in the state House (Dems will have 47 seats in 2021).

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Nothing to worry about really. Hawaii is going to be a solid blue state for the foreseeable future.

Republicans have much more to worry about (Georgia, Arizona and Texas).

[vitoNova]

The Hussein was from Hawaii.

Case closed. 

[Kuumo]

The Republican trend in Hawaii from 2008 to 2020 is easy to explain by a loss of Obama's home-state advantage, consistent pro-incumbent swings in Hawaii, and Asians swinging Republican in 2020. While it's not a concern for the immediate future, Hawaii could get interesting if it continues trending Republican for the next decade.

It's kind of like a reverse Utah; majority party candidate gets a big de facto home-state boost to win >70% of the vote in 2012, state has massive swing toward the minority party after their favorite son is off the ballot but remains safe for the majority party in 2016 and 2020, state's majority demographic group is a small minority of the population in the other 49 states.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

I take it every state that swung right is gonna get its own thread? Can the same apply to every state that swung left? I want my "Trump's underdiscussed bad performance in Alaska/New Hampshire" threads, dammit!


I love how, even with the prospects of 400+ electoral votes, this forum damn-near expected Hawaii to swing right based solely on its 2004/2012 pro-incumbency bias. Much like that take, this thread doesn't surprise me at all. Especially when the swing we're talking about is LESS THAN THREE POINTS!

[Benjamin Frank]

Biden's share of the vote went up in Hawaii over Hillary Clinton in 2016.  I don't know why Trump's share went up by an even greater amount but there are likely many explanations from unhappiness with the travel restrictions that have hurt their largely tourism dependent economy, to other factors dealing with Governor Ige's unpopularity.

Small swings can happen for many reasons from election to election and they may be nothing more than meaningless noise.

[Torrain]

This clearly suggests Linda Lingle will beat Brian Schatz in 2022, and become the first GOP Senator to win in Hawaii since Hiram Fong’s re-election in 1970.

Democrats in Disarray!

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

When the Hawai'i State Legislature looks like this...

I'm not overly worried. In fact, I believe Democrats actually gained an extra seat in the state House (Dems will have 47 seats in 2021).

Few interesting notes about that lone red circle in Hawaii's state senate:

- As of December 2020, the only Republican in Hawaii's state senate is Kurt Favella (R, HI-19).  

- He won the election for Hawaii's 19th by 116 votes (50.5-49.5) in 2018, flipping the seat and breaking through the Democrats' unanimous control of Hawaii's state senate chamber.  

- Favella won far more comfortably in 2020, besting his opponent by 5,332 votes (58.3-41.7).  

- As the only Republican member of the chamber, he is the de facto Senate minority leader as well as the entire Senate minority itself (unique?).

[Frenchrepublican]

Hawaii is known to be a very pro incumbency state, it's the main reason why Kerry did much worse than Gore, Biden underperforming Clinton is not that surprising

[Crumpets]

3% is a very small swing all things considered. 2020 is probably the closest we'll get to the mythical "uniform national swing" for a while, and it's exaggerating some other statistical noise as a result.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

When the Hawai'i State Legislature looks like this...

I'm not overly worried. In fact, I believe Democrats actually gained an extra seat in the state House (Dems will have 47 seats in 2021).

Few interesting notes about that lone red circle in Hawaii's state senate:

- As of December 2020, the only Republican in Hawaii's state senate is Kurt Favella (R, HI-19).  

- He won the election for Hawaii's 19th by 116 votes (50.5-49.5) in 2018, flipping the seat and breaking through the Democrats' unanimous control of Hawaii's state senate chamber.  

- Favella won far more comfortably in 2020, besting his opponent by 5,332 votes (58.3-41.7).  

- As the only Republican member of the chamber, he is the de facto Senate minority leader as well as the entire Senate minority itself (unique?).

This also makes Favella a member of EVERY Senate committee, even those that only have 3 members.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

When the Hawai'i State Legislature looks like this...

I'm not overly worried. In fact, I believe Democrats actually gained an extra seat in the state House (Dems will have 47 seats in 2021).

Few interesting notes about that lone red circle in Hawaii's state senate:

- As of December 2020, the only Republican in Hawaii's state senate is Kurt Favella (R, HI-19).  

- He won the election for Hawaii's 19th by 116 votes (50.5-49.5) in 2018, flipping the seat and breaking through the Democrats' unanimous control of Hawaii's state senate chamber.  

- Favella won far more comfortably in 2020, besting his opponent by 5,332 votes (58.3-41.7).  

- As the only Republican member of the chamber, he is the de facto Senate minority leader as well as the entire Senate minority itself (unique?).

This also makes Favella a member of EVERY Senate committee, even those that only have 3 members.

He's probably the more powerful than any backbench democrat then ?

Does he get paid extra as minority leader ? some states pay their minority leader extra I wonder if that applies to Hawaii.

[ElectionsGuy]

The state that will swing the furthest to the right in 2020 is not Utah. It's not Florida. It's Hawaii, which will swing nearly 3% to the right.

Biden will be the first Democrat to win Hawaii by less than 30% since John Kerry in 2004.

From 2008-2020, Hawaii has swung 15% to the right.

On top of that, Cook Political says that Hawaii will see the largest votes cast surge compared to 2016, casting 34% more votes in 2020 than in 2016, which indicates that Trump won most new voters,

The sudden GOP shift in Hawaii should worry Dems.

No. The state is still overwhelmingly Democratic and will continue to be for a long time. Why should Dems worry about Hawaii? They should worry about trends in Hawaii that apply to other states, like Asians in Nevada and Texas for instance. Utah is trending Dem long term but it's going to be decades before they go Dem at the presidential level so...

[PSOL]

A lot of less wealthier Hawai’ians have been gentrified off the main islands to Nevada, so that may play a part in this story.

[Minnesota Mike]

Like Nevada a tourism based economy that was hurt more by lockdowns than other states. Still a pretty insignificant change in a deep blue state.

[emailking]

It's an underperformance relative to previous Dem candidates, Ok. But I don't think 64% is a bad performance, no matter what the swing, trend, or whatever is.

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

In case anyone was still wondering about the Aloha state.

Hawaii is only voting marginally more Democratic than it did in 2016, and still far below Obama's levels of support in 2008 and 2012-perhaps signs of the minority trends towards Trump?

Hawai'i also tends to swing towards the incumbent in their reelection bids (even though Biden's percentage of the vote is higher than Clinton's), so that could be another factor.

Hawaii is also somewhat isolated from the racial tensions on the US mainland, which means Hawaii Asians are less apt to vote D as a bloc due to being a racial minority, and more because of Asian/Hawaii cultural values.

Looking at the HI precincts in more detail, the size of the R swing in a precinct seems more strongly correlated with the Filipino percentage than any other racial or ethnic group. This is also true on the county level, in that the counties that swung R the most happen to have higher proportions of Filipinos and higher median household incomes.

Hawaii County barely swung R, and it happens to be the most white, most NHPI, least Asian, and lowest median household income county (excluding Kalawao of course).

I find it interesting that Hawaii County (Big Island) swung a lot less toward 45 than the other counties. Hawaii County has the lowest Asian percentage and the highest White, Latino, NHPI, and Multiracial percentages out of the 4 HI counties with over 100 people.

The pro-incumbent swing seems negatively correlated with the NHPI percentage in each county, but doesn’t seem positively correlated with any one racial group. Honolulu County (O’ahu, majority of population) is the most Asian and has the most diverse Asian population, but swung marginally less than Maui County and quite a bit less than Kauai County. It seems like the swings outside Honolulu County basically canceled each other out.  

[Motorcity]

Biden got more votes than Obama 2008.

Trump barely did better than George W. Bush 2004.

[Motorcity]

3% is a very small swing all things considered. 2020 is probably the closest we'll get to the mythical "uniform national swing" for a while, and it's exaggerating some other statistical noise as a result.

I thought the uniform national swing was becoming he norm over the exception?

[mileslunn]

2008, 2012, and 2016 were exceptionally bad for GOP in Hawaii as in first two you had Obama who was born there and in 2016 he was still president so some spillover.  Sky high Democrat numbers under Obama were not going to last.  If you compare to elections prior to 2008, Biden did quite well there as GOP usually gets in high 30s and in case of 2004 got in mid 40s.

[Bootes Void]

This is the case with higher turnout, in most swing states and red state Biden got an edge but in deep blue state Trump got an edge like California and Illinois