On Monday night with just eight days left until the Nov. 3 general election, incumbent Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen stood with his family, friends and campaign staff as they waved signs to music in front of the Kehalani Longs in Wailuku.

“Do not feel like any of this is in the bag,” he told his supporters afterward. “We’ve got to finish this and finish it strong.”

Across town at her campaign headquarters in the Kahului Shopping Center, Sugimura worked the crowd of costumed supporters dressed as storm clouds, royalty and a can of Hawaiian Sun at a “Bingo-ween” campaign event. 

“We’re doing everything we can to get the people to come out and vote for us,” Sugimura told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative. 

It’s the final push before voters decide whether Bissen will be elected to a second term or Sugimura, the vice chair of the Maui County Council, will take his place. 

Bissen won the primary election by 13 points, and his campaign’s latest poll shows him leading by an even wider margin of 20 points heading into the general election. However, Sugimura is outfundraising and outspending him in an attempt to close the gap, with a third-party poll showing her with a lead of 1 to 3 points.

A total of 97,612 ballots have been issued across Maui County, with 17,078 (17.5%) already cast, according to Maui County’s official voting website.

Sugimura said the bingo night and costume contest she held at her headquarters was “a good example of the kind of stuff we’re doing” to connect to the community. When asked what final case she’d want to make to the public about why they should vote for her, Sugimura said: “Because we’re better.”

“People are struggling,” she added. “This is not a rosy picture. So the reality of where we are is not things are good here and there. … We’ve got to work hard to make things better. And we will.”

Bissen said there are “so many things that are beyond the control of our local government,” but that Sugimura, as a five-term council member, has had more time in office to make changes.

“Everything I’ve done as mayor has been with the focus of our community in mind,” he said. “Whether it’s recovery, emergency management, housing, acquiring water, those are all things that I think will benefit our community in the long run, and that will continue to be our focus over the next four years.”

Both campaigns are counting on turnout from their supporters to push them across the finish line. Signs posted around Sugimura’s headquarters listed ways to help, including going door to door, putting up yard signs and banners, making donations or sharing social media posts.

At Bissen’s sign-waving, campaign staffer Laksmi Abraham urged supporters to share “everything that you see” on Bissen’s social media sites.

“We’re up against superPAC money, and the only way that we can leverage getting our message out there is to continue pushing it out as a grassroots campaign,” said Abraham, who works for Bissen’s administration as director of communications and government affairs.

On Tuesday, the Bissen campaign released a video criticizing the more than $2 million spent by “off-island political interests” in the Maui County mayor’s race, according to state campaign spending records. That has come primarily from For a Better Tomorrow, the wealthy superPAC connected to the carpenters’ union that has invested heavily in ads supporting Sugimura. 

“We cannot allow outside political interests to drown out the voices of our community,” Bissen said in the video. “Maui Nui’s future is not for sale.”

Another superPAC, Hawaii Workers Strong, has paid nearly $63,000 this election cycle for advertising in favor of Bissen, but no other registered superPAC has shelled out the level of spending that For a Better Tomorrow has. SuperPACs are not allowed to coordinate with candidates by law.

Sean Newcamp, chair of For a Better Tomorrow, said in a statement to the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative on Tuesday that “Mayor Bissen is attacking working men and women represented by labor unions that oppose his reelection” and have the right to “demand better leadership and hold him accountable.”  

Newcamp said Bissen is “trying to change the subject” after the allegations by Maui Police Chief John Pelletier earlier this month that Bissen is the subject of criminal investigations and claims by former chief of staff Leo Caires in a lawsuit filed earlier this year that he was wrongfully terminated for reporting fraud by Bissen’s former director of the Office of Economic Development and other staff. 

“We support Yuki Lei Sugimura because Maui deserves leadership that will move rebuilding forward, protect local jobs and make county government accountable,” Newcamp said. “We will not apologize for standing up for our families or demanding better from the mayor.”

Bissen has denied the claims in Caires’ lawsuit as well as Pelletier’s allegations that he is under investigation for a felony. At a press conference on O‘ahu, Pelletier provided no details about the alleged felony investigation despite repeated questions from reporters.

Former Office of Economic Development Director Luana Mahi has since been fired and the case referred to the state attorney general, according to the county. Bissen told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative in an interview earlier this month that “there is absolutely no place for corruption in my administration and … if anything has been brought to our attention, we’ve addressed it.”

On Monday, he said: “I can understand people wanting to impact the outcome of the election or people wanting to distract from what’s actually happening and the good work that’s been done. I think things will speak for themselves.”

In response to Newcamp’s comments, the mayor’s campaign said that he was endorsed by 11 unions and that “working families, including the hardworking members of the Carpenters Union, will always come first.”

When asked about the superPAC’s heavy spending in her favor earlier this month, Sugimura pointed out that they do not coordinate with her campaign and that their spending is beyond her control. Despite misgivings from other candidates about the superPAC’s powerful construction industry backing and worries about more development, Sugimura said they are speaking for the hard-working union families of Maui.

“They represent those families that are struggling for cost of living,” she said. “I don’t think we’re going to overbuild considering what a shortage we have of housing.”

She declined to comment on the chief’s allegations against the mayor and whether that might help her campaign.

But others are bringing it up, including OurMaui.org, which said on its website it is run by Keep Maui Nui Home, a nonprofit that is based in Lahaina and does not take candidate-affiliated PAC money. The organization has aired many ads bringing up the allegations, without directly naming candidates.

Both candidates have brought in hundreds of thousands in donations to their personal campaigns and are exhausting their own resources in the final month before the election.

From Sept. 27 to Oct. 19, the last reporting period before the general election, Sugimura raised $184,491 and spent $188,617. She had $40,593 on hand but with loans of $93,097, that put her at a deficit of $52,503. She’s raised a total of $713,507 this election cycle.

Most of her spending has gone towards advertising, including $119,201 to Washington, D.C.-based Hamburger Group Creative and $24,471 to Pacific Media Group, the parent company of Maui Now, a partner of the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative, and a contributor to HJI.

Bissen brought in $115,558 and spent $122,136 during Sept. 27 to Oct. 19. With $44,145 on hand and loans of $38,302, he had a surplus of $5,843 in his campaign coffers. He has raised a total of $644,928 this election cycle.

He also spent heavily on advertising, with $85,485 going to Maryland-based Buying Time.

Another strategy of Sugimura’s campaign down the stretch has been to focus on community networking rather than public debates. While she and Bissen have participated in multiple events together since the primary, she has declined participation in recent political appearances with him, including Hawai‘i News Now’s Spotlight Now program and a Lahaina Strong forum this month, as well as a planned debate by The Maui News and a planned joint debate by Maui Now and KHON2. She also said she was not available for a recent in-studio appearance with Maui Now.

Sugimura said via email Tuesday that “I’m grateful for every invitation, but I have dedicated myself to earning votes in the community and engaging directly with voters” in the final weeks of the campaign. She pointed out that she has taken part in several forums, including ones by Civil Beat, PBS and the Maui Chamber of Commerce, and has done several media interviews laying out her positions.

“I’m confident my message is reaching the community, and it’s resonating with people who feel that Maui can do so much better,” she said.

Bissen said he thinks voters missed out on the times that Sugimura declined to debate with him.

“I think it benefits our community when they can see us side by side and hear our answers and our thoughts and our problem-solving and our ideas,” he said. 

Both candidates have one more week of campaign events to go along with reaching people on social media and through advertising.

In the primary, the votes that went to the eight other candidates or were left blank were enough to close the gap between Bissen and Sugimura. Traditionally, more people also vote during a general election than a primary.

When asked if he thought the general election would be tighter, Bissen said, “I think anybody going into a campaign has to assume it will be a close race.” 

He pointed to a poll commissioned by his campaign that showed 53% of voters choosing Bissen, 33% Sugimura and 13% undecided. Lake Research Partners conducted the survey of 330 likely general election voters in September and was paid $10,000 by Bissen’s campaign for its work, spending records show. The same firm showed Bissen with a 6-point lead ahead of the primary election. 

“The most important poll we’ve had so far are the results of the primary election,” Bissen said. “That’s the only poll that matters. The next most important poll will be the (general) election.”

Meanwhile, a poll by Tulchin Research of 400 likely general election voters from Oct. 6-10 showed a much closer contest, with Sugimura leading 45% to Bissen’s 44% among all likely voters, and 47% to Bissen’s 44% among voters certain to vote. The poll concluded the same day Pelletier made the allegations. It noted that 78% of voters had “recently seen or heard information about Bissen,” and that of those voters, 48% said what they learned “made them less favorable toward the mayor.”

Sugimura’s campaign said it did not commission the poll. Tulchin was the same firm that conducted a poll prior to the primary election showing Sugimura with a 13-point lead. 

“I think most voters would be skeptical of campaign-commissioned polls,” Sugimura said via email on Tuesday. “The people of Maui Nui are smarter than our opponent may be giving them credit for. We look forward to seeing the results on November 3rd.”