Nick Nikhilananda has been a member of the Green Party of Hawaiʻi for nearly 35 years.
His history is so deep that he played a role in getting the party on Hawaiʻi’s ballot for the first time, way back in 1992. That was accomplished along with people like the late Ira Rohter, a University of Hawaiʻi political science professor who helped found and co-chair the group.
The Green Party has fielded dozens of candidates over the years, including Nikhilananda himself. It saw a couple of them elected in the 1990s to the Hawaiʻi County Council, which today is nonpartisan like all county offices.
But Greens have not succeeded in getting more members elected since. The state is too dominated by Democrats with Republicans comprising a weak yet vocal minority.
On Nov. 3, that all changed, at least for one seat in the 76-member Legislature. Pāʻele Kiakona, a Green, defeated Democrat Sne Patel and Republican Elle Cochran in House District 14 representing the Lahaina area.
It’s the first time in Hawaiʻi’s history that a Green has won office to the Legislature and one of only a half-dozen times any Green has been elected to a legislature nationwide.
“It was unbelievable,” Nikhilananda said in a interview Tuesday, who described his overall mood as “ecstatic.”
He had to wait for the good news, though, because he could only access the first online printout from the Hawaiʻi Office of Elections on election night.
“That’s all I could get from my computer,” said Nikhilananda, who lives in remote Huelo on the North Shore of Maui. “So I went to bed with him close but behind. And then I woke up and I saw some online comments that he’s in the lead by 107 votes.”
That lead increased to 119 this Tuesday when the Elections Office completed its curing of ballot signatures.
(Nov. 23 is the last day to file any objections to the 2026 elections.)
Nikhilananda is confidant that Kiakona will live up to the Green Party’s values (more on that in a moment) and be a voice to reckon with at the Legislature.
“He’s so humble,” said Nikhilananda. “He knows people at the Legislature. He’s not attached to the Democrats hating the Republicans, Republicans hating the Democrats. He says he’s going to work with both. He’s a community activist. He’s someone who cares.”
Nikhilananda and other Greens hope Kiakona’s unexpected win will also open paths to grow the party.
Susan Roberts-Emery, the party’s co-chair, said she and others have received lots of inquiries since the election expressing interest in helping the party spread its message.
“I just got off the Zoom with you and another person has reached out to the GPH that wants to run as a Green next round,” she said in an email Tuesday following my interview with her.
“We are seeing the reactions of the people who are ready for a better Hawai’i, one that puts the ʻāina, wai (water) and the future generations ahead of the almighty dollar.”
Four Pillars
The word “green” in Hawaiʻi evokes Gov. Josh Green, of course; the “green fee” — the nation’s first climate impact fee, established this year — and perhaps the Green New Deal pushed, thus far unsuccessfully, by progressive Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey in the U.S. Congress.
It’s likely many Hawaiʻi voters are unaware of the Green Party platform, even though two other Greens ran this year for Hawaiʻi’s 1st Congressional District (Jordan Conley, who lost to Democrat Rep. Ed Case) and House District 50 in Kailua and part of Kāneʻohe Bay (Jesse Fitzgerald, who lost to Democrat Rep. Mike Lee).
The Green Party also ran a ticket in the 2018 gubernatorial election, finishing third behind incumbents Gov. David Ige and Lt. Gov. Josh Green and the GOP ticket.
The party is based primarily on four pillars, according to a press release from the local Greens issued Wednesday:
- Grassroots Democracy: “We champion direct democracy, transparent governance, public election financing, and Ranked Choice Voting so local communities hold the real power.”
- Environmental Wisdom: “Hawaiʻi must live within its natural limits. We support sustainable land and water management, transitioning off fossil fuels, opposing LNG, and rejecting Data Centers.”
- Social Justice: “We promote fairness, human rights, self-determination, inclusion, and economic security, ensuring safe housing, clean water, and healthcare as human rights.”
- Peace: “We advocate for demilitarization, nonviolent conflict resolution, and addressing the heavy military footprint in Hawaiʻi. Land back and ‘cease the leases’ remain vital priorities.”
The platform reflects a degree of flexibility in the party depending on local priorities. Liquified natural gas, data centers and ranked choice voting, for example, are recent topics influencing public discourse.
But climate change, renewable energy, government reform and demilitarization are, if you will, evergreen issues that have their origins with the Green Party’s rise that began on the political fringe in the early 1970s in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom before going mainstream in the 1980s in West Germany.
In the United States, the Green Party has struggled nationwide, according to the national party: No green-party member has been elected to any federal office and its best performance in a presidential election was Ralph Nader’s 2.7% of the popular vote in 2000.
“However, they have wielded influence in other ways,” reported a 2022 article from the Council on Foreign Relations. “As of November 2021, Greens held 133 state and local elected offices nationwide, and they were early proponents of a Green New Deal, which became popular among Democrats.”
Going Green
While not in all states, the Green Party has a presence in blue states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware — and red — Florida, Georgia, Kansas and Texas and dozens of others. (Three of those red states turned pretty purple Nov. 3.)
Mike Feinstein, a Green Party member and former mayor and City Council member in Santa Monica, California, emailed me after the election to say that since the first Greens ran in the U.S. in 1985, members have been elected to public office approximately 1,750 times. At least 53 were elected to a local government office this year, with some results still being counted.
As for Hawaiʻi, said Feinstein — he happens to also be the elections database manager for the Green Party of the United States — Greens have run for office 87 times since the party first qualified for the ballot in 1992.
In spite of the diversity of membership and various views, this statement on the national Green Party’s website captures its current broad vision: “Green political parties reflect a broader social movement seeking to reorient civilization in what supporters say are more sustainable and humane directions. Their environmental concerns began with opposition to nuclear power but have expanded to include climate change, pollution, and industrial agriculture.”
Aloha, ʻĀina
Kiakona’s Green candidacy almost didn’t happen. Jackie Keefe, who was considering running for the Lahaina House seat, heard about Kiakona’s interest. He was already well known for his work in the community activist group Lahaina Strong.
She said Kiakona was considering running as an independent but was persuaded by her and others to join the Green Party. Keefe also became his campaign manager.
Roberts-Emery said Kiakona was drawn to the party’s four pillars and participated in the party’s convention in June on Maui.
“That’s what attracted him to the party,” she said. “And this isn’t a movement about one man. Lahaina is the microcosm of what’s happening across Hawaiʻi, and Maui directly reflects what’s happening on all the islands.”
Reached by phone Wednesday, Kiakona confirmed that he was drawn to the party’s platform. But he had to be convinced, as many of his friends urged him to run as a Democrat.
“They were like, ‘You should just run as a Democrat and just get in, because if you don’t get in, then it’s all for nothing’,’ he said. “And I said, ‘Well, if anybody can do it, it’s myself right now. There’s nobody out there. There’s no other candidate that has been so like visible.’ And also, I basically spent three years campaigning. I didn’t think I was going to run for office, but those last three years of recovery was in itself a campaign to get more name recognition.”
Kiakona said he was frustrated that the incumbent, Cochran, missed a lot of floor sessions in 2025 and 2026. He was worried how a lack of a voice for Lahaina might affect funding for recovery and rebuilding as a result of the 2023 wildfires.
But he also started to do a little homework and found that the Greens resembled another third party, one that was formed for the 2020 election but has since disbanded. Their platform included a focus on economic diversification, renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and investment in the health care system
“As I started digging into the Green Party, I was like, ‘Wait, this is like the Aloha Aina Party or very similar, all of the same values.’ And at the end of the day, when you look at it, all of the Green Party values align with the Democratic values, but not all Democratic values align with Green Party.”
“I was like, ‘Okay, all of the good parts of the Dem Party are in the Green Party. Therefore, I’m gonna go here’.”
Running as a Green also had an advantage not afforded to nonpartisan candidates. Greens and Libertarians automatically advance from the primary to the general election, unlike other independent candidates, which must earn 10% of the total votes to move from the primary to the general, or earn a vote equal to or greater than the lowest vote received by the partisan candidates (that is, Democrats, Republicans, Greens and Libertarians).
It is too soon, obviously, to know if Kiakona and the Greens might have influence in state governance come January when the new session begins. Freshman orientation was Monday, but Kiakona doesn’t yet have an office as the Capitol undergoes repairs during the interim.
But he has met with House Speaker Nadine Nakamura and Vice Speaker Linda Ichiyama.
“I am willing to caucus with whoever, because all of this means nothing if I get in the building and I’m just shoved to the side and I can’t get any work done for the community,” he said. “I’m trying to look at this as an opportunity for for everybody.”
For Green Party co-chair Dave Mulinix, change can’t come soon enough.
“Susan and I have been doing this way before we had white hair, and that’s how long we’ve been working for peace and justice,” he said in the same Zoom interview with Emery Roberts.
“And every year in the Legislature, it’s really disheartening. I’m not sure exactly what to call it, but it’s an old boys’ network. It is not a democratic system in any way, shape, or form. You’ve got one or two guys at the top who decide what’s going to get passed and what isn’t, and doesn’t matter how many people come forward and testify on what is important.”
Kiakona, predicted Mulinix, will not be a flash in the pan.
“For an Indigenous person, there’s certain things you’re not going to give away,” he said. “He’s not going to give away clean water, the clean ocean, protecting the human rights and civil rights of the people. It will be impossible to get him to move off of being what’s stitched into his DNA, who he is as a human being… I’m sure we’re going to hear some incredible speeches that are going to blow people out of the water.”
