Democrat Tops Hawaii Race for Rep. Mink’s Term

Democrat Ed Case, who lost in his party’s primary for governor, won the free-for-all election to fill the remaining five weeks of the term of the late Rep. Patsy T. Mink, election officials said Sunday.

Case got 23,576 votes, or 51% of those cast Saturday, for the 38 candidates running in the 2nd District, which includes rural Oahu and the neighbor islands.

Case may never cast a vote on the House floor during the short term and may not even be sworn in because Congress is not in session.

Still, he said, he sees his substantial victory as the momentum he needs to get the job on a more permanent basis.

Case is a candidate in the Jan. 4 special election to determine who will serve the two-year term that Mink posthumously won in the Nov. 5 general election.

If he wins, Case would have the most seniority among the freshmen in the next Congress.

“If we can take this five-week responsibility and roll it over into a two-year term and beyond, we will have seniority over other members of Congress that were elected but are not yet members of Congress,” he said.

Mink died of viral pneumonia on Sept. 28, two days too late to have her name removed from the general election ballot.

Case faces a number of prominent public figures from both parties.

Among his challengers is former Democratic state Sen. Matt Matsunaga, who lost as the Democrats’ candidate for lieutenant governor. Matsunaga is also the son of Case’s political mentor.

Another of the candidates in Saturday’s special election was Mink’s widower, John Mink. He came in second with 16,624 votes, or 36%.

Only 13% of the district’s 348,000 registered voters turned out for the election.