Large business associations like the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce rarely write good comedy, but earlier this month, when the organization promoted its upcoming Sept. 23 Gubernatorial Candidate Forum, it did exactly that. “Save the date!” the organization tweeted on Sept. 2. “Hear from all 3 leading candidates on initiatives to shape HI’s biz climate.”
The “3 leading candidates” were, of course, Republican James “Duke” Aiona, Democrat David Ige and Independent Mufi Hannemann. Considering that they’re in a four-way race for governor (you’d think that Libertarian candidate Jeff Davis–because he’s a LIBERTARIAN–would be the best friend the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce ever had, but go figure), the chamber’s tweet is just trolling, pure and simple. But until now, I didn’t have the data to show that. Thanks to today’s Civil Beat story on its new governor’s race poll, I can say for certain that, in fact, there are just two “leading candidates,” and Hannemann isn’t one of them.
“Democrat David Ige has a 4 percentage point lead over Republican Duke Aiona in the Hawaii governor’s race,” Civil Beat’s Chad Blair reported today. “Ige, a state senator, is up 43 percent to 39 percent over Aiona, the former lieutenant governor.”
As for Davis, he’s just polling two percent, which isn’t surprising for the largely progressive Hawaii electorate as a whole, because he’s a LIBERTARIAN. But as for Hannemann, the Civil Beat poll shows him in just the high one figures–a mere eight percent, the same percentage as those who consider themselves “undecided.”
Of course, there’s nearly six weeks to go in the race. There’s plenty of time for Hannemann’s numbers to drop even further.
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