The 2025 legislative session ended just as Donald Trump marked his first 100 days back in the White House. His second-term agenda is pretty much what he and the Republican Party told voters it would be: aggressive immigration enforcement, expanded parental rights, new tariffs and deep cuts to federal agencies.

 While Hawaiʻi ‘s voters still overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates last November, they sent more Republicans to the Legislature than they have in recent years, and Trump earned 37.5% of the state’s vote — the highest share any Republican presidential candidate has won here in the last two decades.

That doesn’t mean Hawaiʻi has given the GOP a mandate. But it does mean more voters are open to Republican ideas than they were a few years ago. With the national party’s ideology clearer than ever, the question here at home is whether Hawaiʻi’s newly expanded Republican legislative caucuses are amplifying, moderating or moving away from the administration’s positions.

Familiar Stand Against Taxes

Let’s start with the economy. The House and Senate Republican caucuses began the 2025 legislative session with the clear message that Hawaiʻi is too expensive. In their caucus package, House Republicans proposed eliminating the general excise tax on food and medical services and removing the income tax entirely. They also mostly opposed measures to increase the capital gains tax and the transient accommodations tax.

These proposals reflect the broader Republican messaging both locally and nationally — less taxation, more deregulation and economic stimulus through supply-side strategies. It’s a familiar trickle-down framework, consistent with the Trump administration’s 2017 tax cuts that disproportionately benefited higher-income earners.

However, when it came time to determine the state budget, Hawaiʻi Republicans were less in line with their national counterparts. Most supported the state budget, which included funding to blunt the impact of federal budget cuts. Only Reps. Diamond Garcia, Christopher Muraoka and Elijah Pierick voted against it in the House. Sen. Brenton Awa was the sole Republican to oppose it in the Senate.

In his floor speech, Pierick, who is most consistently aligned with the national Republican talking points, explained his vote with a quintessentially conservative argument. He said the budget would be unsuccessful because it was built on a faulty framework that encourages big government instead of private sector growth.

Immigration And Culture War Issues

Immigration, however, revealed stronger associations with the national GOP.

Six of seven House Republicans voted against the Due Process in Immigration Proceedings Program, which would have provided legal representation to individuals in immigration proceedings. Only Rep. Kanani Souza voted in favor. Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Fevella signed on to the bill, but his Republican Senate colleagues, Awa and Samantha DeCorte, voted against it.

GOP members also opposed measures that would have limited collaboration with federal immigration authorities and blocked immigration detention facilities on public lands.

These bills were also included in the party’s regular “Controversial Bills” email blasts. Hawaiʻi’s Republicans offered no public explanation for their opposition. However, their votes were cast against the backdrop of the Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia case, in which a Maryland man with no criminal record was deported without due process and sent to an El Salvadorian prison against a judge’s order.

On culture war issues, Hawaiʻi Republicans remain aligned with the national party. All House Republicans, with the exception of Souza, signed the caucus’ “stand your ground” legislation, and only Souza and Julie Reyes Oda supported a ban on ghost guns, which became law. In the Senate, Awa and Kurt Fevella also voted against the bill.

Correction: An earlier version of this report misstated Reyes Oda’s vote on the ghost gun ban.

And, in a rare example of unified Republican opposition, every House Republican voted against a bill to remove religious exemptions for school immunizations. In his floor speech, Garcia called the bill “a direct assault on the First Amendment,” which would “prohibit the free exercise of religion by families who hold sincere convictions regarding vaccinations.”

Souza took a different approach, saying her opposition “is not just about religious freedom” but bodily and parental autonomy. Notably, a few of the House’s most progressive Democratic members also raised concerns, and the bill did not move forward.

Some Breaks With National Party

But there are areas where Hawaiʻi Republicans break from the national party. The most notable is Native Hawaiian policy. While the national GOP platform is largely silent on Indigenous issues, the Hawaiʻi GOP platform calls for accelerating homestead awards and building on Hawaiian homelands.

House Republicans introduced bills to transfer more public land trust revenue to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and to make Department of Hawaiian Home Lands leases eligible for federal lending. These bills didn’t pass, but their inclusion in the caucus package underscores a divergence from the mainland GOP.

Most are latching onto the popular ideas — like eliminating income taxes — while avoiding the unpopular ones, like cutting services.

So, how are Hawaiʻi’s Republicans responding to the Trump administration’s lead on major issues? That depends. When it comes to immigration, cultural flashpoints and education mandates, they’re voting like their mainland counterparts, with a couple of exceptions.

On Native Hawaiian programs, they show a more localized, independent approach. And while some, like Pierick and Garcia, voted against the budget and key spending bills, most of their colleagues chose not to champion budget cuts and supported new expenditures.

This election may have shown a bit more openness to Republican ideas, but voters are not necessarily asking for the full national GOP package. And Hawaiʻi Republicans aren’t unanimously embracing it either. Most are latching onto the popular ideas — like eliminating income taxes — while avoiding the unpopular ones, like cutting services.