HONOLULU — Incumbent U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz won his Democratic primary race Saturday, defeating four challengers in his bid for his first full term in office. ADVERTISING HONOLULU — Incumbent U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz won his Democratic primary race Saturday,
HONOLULU — Incumbent U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz won his Democratic primary race Saturday, defeating four challengers in his bid for his first full term in office.
Schatz easily advanced to meet Republican John Carroll in the November general election.
Schatz says his win in the Hawaii primary validates all the hard work he has done on behalf of the state, and he looks forward to continuing a robust campaign into the general election.
If he wins the election in November, Schatz says he will continue to focus on combatting global warming by making the United States a global leader on clean energy.
“My priority continues to be working on bringing home federal resources for the state of Hawaii and making a meaningful difference on climate change,” Schatz told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Saturday. “It’s the challenge of our generation, it’s an area where American leadership is essential and we’ve made a lot of progress over the last two years.”
Schatz had an unlikely road to the Senate. When Hawaii’s beloved Sen. Daniel Inouye died in December 2012, it was left to then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie to fill the seat. Inouye’s dying wish was to have then-U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa fill the seat, but Abercrombie instead chose Schatz, his lieutenant governor.
Two years later, Hanabusa challenged Schatz but lost in a special election to fill the last two years of Inouye’s unexpired term.
Other Democratic candidates in Saturday’s race included Makani Christensen, Tutz Honeychurch, Artuto Reyes and Miles Shiratori. The Republican candidates included Carroll, Karla Gottschalk, Eddie Pirkowski and John Roco.
Attempts to reach Carroll weren’t immediately successful.
Joao Santos, 53, a Democrat who has lived in Honolulu for 23 years, voted at Kawananakoa Middle School on Saturday and said he has known Schatz for a number of years and feels his re-election is certain. Santos sees infrastructure and homelessness as major local issues that need to be addressed.
“They are critical issues for our economy,” said Santos, an insurance agent. “Our number one industry, tourism, homelessness is having a big effect on that.”
