Incumbents Lead The Money Race For Congress. Will Outside Groups Wade In?
Hawaiʻi’s U.S. Reps. Ed Case and Jill Tokuda have significantly more campaign cash than their challengers as races head toward mid-summer primaries.
State Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole continues to keep pace with U.S. Rep. Ed Case in the Democratic primary money race for Hawaiʻi’s First Congressional District but still faces substantial hurdles if he hopes to unseat the incumbent.
Keohokalole reported raising just over $210,000 in the first quarter of 2026, according to his latest filings with the Federal Election Commission. That’s about $60,000 more than he raised in the last quarter of 2025, but less than what he hauled in immediately after announcing his run against Case.
Case, meanwhile, reported raising $237,000 in the first quarter of 2026 but has $890,000 left in the bank compared to Keohokalole’s $252,000.
Democratic state Rep. Della Au Belatti, the only one of the three in the race to swear off donations from corporate political action committees, was trailing both of them at less than $99,000 — nonetheless her best showing to date.
In the last quarter, Case reported sizable donations from PACs affiliated with the sugar industry, defense sector and Blue Origin, which is Jeff Bezos’s space exploration company, while Keohokalole accepted contributions from PACs tied to Alexander & Baldwin and two of Hawaiʻi’s main shipping companies, Matson and Saltchuk Resources.
In fact, much of Keohokalole’s funding in the past quarter — about $1 out of every $10 — came from Matson and its employees, including CEO and Chairman Matthew Cox.
That’s not too surprising given Case’s long-standing opposition to the Jones Act, a century old maritime law that restricts shipping between U.S. ports to U.S.-owned and operated vessels, and criticisms of the companies, like Matson, which have made it a critical part of their bottom line.
Case has argued for years that Jones Act restrictions lead to a higher cost of living in the islands and recently lauded President Donald Trump’s decision to grant a 60-day waiver to the law in an attempt to provide some reprieve to spiking oil prices caused by his war in Iran. The congressman last month called Trump’s waiver a “no-brainer” and a “blanket admission of the Jones Act’s crippling effects on our economy.”
Money aside, Keohokalole and Belatti may have a rough go if they want to unseat Case, who’s seeking his fifth consecutive term. Political observers and even the candidates themselves have acknowledged the difficulty of taking on an incumbent in a crowded primary.
As Keohokalole told Civil Beat previously, “If I’m an incumbent running for reelection, I want multiple challengers.”
Meanwhile, in the race for Hawaiʻi’s Second Congressional District, which includes rural Oʻahu and the neighbor islands, U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda continues to raise far more than her presumed Republican opponent, state Sen. Brenton Awa.
Tokuda’s campaign reported raising more than $193,000 in the first quarter of the year while Awa reported contributions of just $13,500. That amount for Awa is just a sliver of the $76,000 he received at the end of 2025 after announcing his campaign. The $23,000 he had left over in the bank is also a small fraction of the nearly $600,000 in cash on hand for Tokuda’s campaign.
But Tokuda has been warning in fundraising emails about the specter of outside money seeping into the race. She pointed to the recent formation of a GOP super PAC, Hawaiʻi Voter Coalition, which lists Thomas Datwyler as its treasurer.
Datwyler is a consultant who works closely with GOP candidates and causes and is no stranger to controversy. He’s worked for several PACs tied to former Hawaiʻi representative and current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
He was also caught up in the scandal surrounding former GOP congressman George Santos, who was convicted of wire fraud and identity theft, but then had his 87-month prison sentence commuted by Trump.
“It’s clear National Republicans are looking for an opening here, and we could see dark money pour into this race at any moment,” Tokuda said in her fundraising pitch. “But with your support, we won’t give them an inch.”
So far, the Hawaiʻi Voter Coalition has not reported raising or spending any money.
At this point, neither Tokuda or Awa have drawn a challenger in their respective primaries.
