The congressional race to represent rural Oʻahu and the neighbor islands features Hawaiʻi's highest ranking Republican and a two-term Democrat seeking reelection.
Brenton Awa is running for the GOP and challenging the incumbent, U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda. He represents Oʻahu's North Shore in the state Senate, where he's minority leader.
This senior role has had people turning to him to be a bridge to national Republicans ever since President Donald Trump won a second term. Last year, Awa flew to the East Coast to try to talk to the lawyer suing Kamehameha Schools in a challenge to its admissions policy preferring Native Hawaiian students.
Awa thinks voters should formalize the arrangement and send him to Congress.
" We're getting the calls, so why not make it official?" Awa said in a recent interview with HPR while he was tending to plants in Haleʻiwa. "If it happens, there's a lot of benefit over the next two years."
Awa thinks Hawaiʻi would gain leverage with Trump and his allies if it sent a Republican to Congress. He posed a hypothetical to demonstrate how this influence could be used: Trump wants a bill to pass the House. Awa has the tie-breaking vote but would only vote for the legislation if the lawsuits end.
"These are real conversations that happen," Awa said.
Awa believes in term limits and intends to serve only two years if elected. There are currently no term limits for members of the U.S. Congress.
Tokuda said voters want her to return to Congress to address things like high gas and grocery prices that they can't afford.
"They're telling me to fight, keep fighting, because they understand where the pain is coming from," the Democrat told HPR while sign-waving to early morning commuters in Kāneʻohe. "They understand the cause of it — what's causing gas to go high with the war in Iran, what's causing food prices and everyday prices to go up with the kind of tariff and trade wars that they're seeing."
If reelected, she said she'll push to suspend the federal gas tax and get tariff rebates for consumers.
Addressing Hawaiian Homelands blood quantum rules
Awa said his top issues are fighting against lawsuits aiming to take away Hawaiian rights and addressing blood quantum rules for Hawaiian Homelands successor leases.
Currently, lessees are only allowed to bequeath a lease to a spouse, child, grandchild or sibling if the inheriting party is at least one-fourth Native Hawaiian.
Awa wants to reduce that fraction to 1/32nd — and to try to do so now even with the Trump administration in power. Former Rep. Kai Kahele, a Democrat, first introduced this legislation before he left office in 2022.
" I recognize why the other party doesn't want to push it because of fear of retaliation," Awa said. "But I think we can bridge that gap. We've had talks up there with the White House."
Tokuda said she supports this reform, and has introduced legislation to do so, but said it would be safest to push the issue when Democrats control at least one chamber of Congress.
This is particularly true when the Trump administration has argued Native Hawaiians are a racial group and not an Indigenous people, she said.
"It's a very dangerous time if we don't have a checks and balance in place to make sure that a bill is not used to actually hurt Hawaiians, versus help make sure that the successorship is in place so that people can pass down their leases to the next generation," Tokuda said.
Analyst watching whether Awa can improve on GOP's 2024 showing
Beth Fukumoto, a former Hawaiʻi lawmaker and congressional candidate, said Awa is one of the Republican Party's more dynamic and promising candidates. Tokuda, meanwhile, has been visible and present in the community, she said.
She's watching to see whether Awa is able to win a higher share of the vote than Trump did in the 2024 general election. Trump won about 37% of the vote in Hawaiʻi two years ago.
"Jill Tokuda has done a good job of making sure people know that she understands their needs. And so I don't really expect that sort of pent-up frustration against the system to come out against Jill Tokuda," Fukumoto said. "But that is, I'm sure, what Brenton's hoping will happen."
