The so-called Progressive Democrats in Hawaiʻi, the ones MAGA call Communists and Socialists, are often better at being politically correct the Hawaiian way more than making their opponents pay a political price for the consequences of their failures.

They describe the housing crisis, the cost of food, the influence of corporations, the failures of government, and the growing distance between elected officials and the people they supposedly represent. Then, having identified the problem, they soften the language, avoid naming those responsible, promise to listen to everyone, and run campaigns designed not to offend.

That is not a strategy for winning. It is a strategy for “respectably” losing.

Kindness is a personal virtue. Deference is a political choice. The two should not be confused. A candidate can treat an opponent with dignity while examining that opponent’s votes, donors, promises, alliances, and failures. In fact, a challenger who refuses to explain why an incumbent should be removed has failed to perform the most basic duty of a political campaign.

Every election asks two questions: What should government do, and why has it not already done it?

Progressive candidates usually answer the first question with long platforms containing worthy proposals. They often evade the second because answering it requires conflict. It requires naming the legislators who blocked reform, the committees that buried bills, the corporations that benefited, the donors who financed the incumbents, and the public officials who promised change but accommodated the existing system.

Without that explanation, a platform is merely a wish list.

The Puna Comparison

As an example, the 2026 Puna primaries offer an imperfect but useful comparison. Tamlyn Hunt challenged Representative Greggor Ilagan in House District 4. Tanya Yamanaka Aynessazian challenged Senator Joy San Buenaventura in Senate District 2. Both challengers lost.

According to the third election printout, Hunt received 1,270 votes, or 32.2 percent of the ballots cast in his contest. Aynessazian received 1,911 votes, or 24.5 percent in hers. Hunt therefore performed about 7.7 percentage points better, although the races involved different districts, offices, electorates, and incumbents. The comparison cannot prove that campaign posture caused the difference. It does, however, suggest something worth considering.¹

Hunt ran an explicitly comparative campaign. He identified particular failures in the legislative process, called for an end to the Young Brothers shipping monopoly, criticized the elimination of the state solar tax credit, condemned closed-door legislative maneuvering, and presented specific proposals on food, energy, housing, education, and public integrity.²

Most significantly, Hunt examined his opponent’s campaign finances. Using Campaign Spending Commission records, he argued that only 3 percent of Ilagan’s 2026 campaign money had come from within the district and that much of Ilagan’s support over several election cycles came from Oʻahu-based organizations, political committees, corporations, and institutional donors. Hunt did not accuse Ilagan of being personally corrupt. He expressly described him as decent and hardworking. He then asked the politically necessary question: to whom is a representative dependent and accountable?³

That is not mudslinging. It is an evidence-based argument about political power.

Aynessazian also raised legitimate issues. She spoke about affordability, healthcare, government accountability, election reform, solar energy, and public participation. She had demonstrated personal courage as one of the plaintiffs who successfully challenged secret legislative meetings. Her campaign was not devoid of substance.

But its dominant public language emphasized listening, healing, collaboration, engagement, and a “no-bullies zone.” Asked what she would do during her first six months to address Puna’s cost of living and accountability problems, she emphasized listening sessions, transparent reporting, and easier public participation.⁴

Those are worthwhile practices. They are not, by themselves, an answer to the cost of housing, food, electricity, transportation, or medical care. More importantly, they do not explain why voters should remove an incumbent senator.

A challenger must challenge.

Accountability Is Not an Attack

Progressives have allowed the political establishment to define almost any criticism as “negative campaigning.” That definition protects incumbents. It turns their voting records, financial relationships, and failures into matters too impolite to discuss.

There is an obvious difference between personal abuse and political accountability. A candidate’s body, family, private suffering, ethnicity, gender, religion, or personal mannerisms are not legitimate political targets. Neither are rumors, insults, fabricated accusations, or deliberate distortions.

But their votes are fair subjects. Campaign contributions are fair subjects. Missed hearings, buried bills, broken promises, conflicts of interest, legislative alliances, government contracts, and the material consequences of public policy are all fair subjects. They are not merely permissible topics. They are the substance of democratic choice.

Political scientist John Geer has argued that so-called negative campaign messages frequently provide more useful information than positive advertising because they are more likely to address differences in records, policies, and qualifications. Positive advertisements tell voters what candidates say about themselves. Comparative criticism tests those claims against evidence.⁵

The proper standard is therefore not whether criticism is negative. The proper questions are whether it is true, relevant, documented, and connected to the responsibilities of the office.

Concentrated Power Has Human Agents

“The Wrong Enemy” argued that ordinary Republicans and Democrats are not each other’s principal enemies. The deeper adversary is concentrated economic power: the developers, utilities, landowners, banks, insurers, contractors, tourism conglomerates, and other institutions that enjoy privileged access to government.

But concentrated power is not a ghost. It operates through people.

It advances through committee chairs who refuse to schedule hearings, legislators who vote for corporate priorities, regulators who accept industry assumptions, governors who appoint accommodating officials, and candidates whose campaigns depend upon the interests they will later be expected to regulate.

Calling corporate power the enemy while refusing to identify its political agents reduces the argument to an abstraction. It allows every officeholder to agree that “the system” is broken while denying personal responsibility for maintaining it.

The incumbent does not have to be a bad person. The incumbent merely has to be part of the arrangement that needs to change.

Progressives should say so plainly and repeatedly.

If You Lose, Leave Something Behind

No candidate should enter an election intending to lose. But insurgent candidates usually begin behind. Incumbents possess name recognition, donor networks, institutional endorsements, legislative staff, political relationships, and years of accumulated favors. Defeating them may take more than one election.

That makes the substance of a losing campaign important. A useful defeat can expose a donor network, establish an issue, document a legislative failure, recruit volunteers, identify sympathetic voters, force an incumbent to defend a record, and create the foundation for the next campaign. It can move a previously ignored proposal into public debate. It can make future accommodation with corporate interests politically more expensive.

But none of that happens if the challenger spends the campaign speaking only about hope, unity, leadership, and listening.

If you are going to lose, make your points on the way down. Help voters understand who profits from the housing shortage. Explain why electricity remains unaffordable. Identify who killed the election-reform bill. Show how much money the incumbent received from interests affected by the incumbent’s votes. Describe the public land transferred, the development approved, the contract awarded, the tax exemption granted, or the reform quietly buried.

Then present the alternative in terms people can measure: this many affordable homes, this reduction in electricity costs, this increase in local food purchasing, this limit on campaign contributions, this public vote instead of a closed-door decision.

Do not offer twenty priorities. Choose three or four conflicts that define the district. Research them thoroughly. Name the interests involved. Show the consequences. Propose concrete action. Repeat the argument until voters can repeat it themselves.

That is how a campaign becomes an organization rather than a temporary expression of virtue.

Start Winning

Playing nice has become a way for progressives to lose without offending anyone who matters. It permits candidates to preserve their moral self-image while leaving the machinery of power undisturbed.

Hawaiʻi does not need progressive candidates to become cruel, dishonest, or reckless. It does not need a left-wing imitation of MAGA abuse. It needs candidates willing to make political conflict visible and understandable.

Respect the person. Examine the record. Tell the truth. Document it. Name the interests. Explain the consequences. Offer a practical alternative. Ask people to choose.

Addressing issues is not negative campaigning. Holding an incumbent accountable is not bullying. Explaining who benefits from public policy is not divisive. These are the essential functions of democratic politics.

Progressives must run aggressively to govern, organize to win, and speak plainly enough that people understand what is at stake. And if they lose, they should at least leave behind a map of power that the next campaign can use.

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1. Big Island Video News, “Hawaiʻi Primary Election Results for Hawaiʻi County Races,” August 9, 2026. The figures are from the third election printout and were not yet the certified final results.
2. Honolulu Civil Beat, “Candidate Q&A: State House District 4—Tamlyn Hunt,” July 20, 2026.
3. Tam Hunt, “Greggor Ilagan Holds Puna’s House Seat, but the Money Points to Honolulu,” Medium, July 20, 2026. The calculations are Hunt’s analysis of Hawaiʻi Campaign Spending Commission records and should be understood as a campaign argument derived from public filings.
4. Honolulu Civil Beat, “Candidate Q&A: State Senate District 2—Tanya Yamanaka Aynessazian,” July 20, 2026; Tanya Yamanaka Aynessazian for State Senate, “Campaign Website,” accessed August 10, 2026.
5. John G. Geer, In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 23.