Overnight, Green Party candidate Pā‘ele Kiakona surged past Democrat Sne Patel to gain a 107-vote edge in West Maui’s House District 14.

While there are 151 ballots in the race with issues that need to be fixed before the count can be finalized, Kiakona’s campaign declared victory in a news release on Wednesday afternoon.

Kiakona told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative that even as he waits for the final tally, “it’s a victory in itself where we’re at” as the third-party candidate.

“It is proof that the hard work of this community doesn’t go to waste,” he said. “That it’s not frivolous, that it is possible for us to, if we really believe and we do things from a place of really trying to be pono and do what this community needs, then there’s nothing that can stop us.”

But Patel hasn’t conceded yet, saying Wednesday afternoon he would wait to let the process play out. 

“Mathematically, it’s possible that it could swing back my way, but the odds aren’t in my favor, right?” he said. “I think it is what it is, and I think the public has had a chance to cast their votes. And, I’m of course always hopeful.”

In Maui County’s tightest general election contest, Kiakona led the field with 2,991 votes (41.4%) to Patel’s 2,884 votes (39.6%). Incumbent Rep. Elle Cochran, who switched from Democrat to Republican, was a distant third with 1,236 votes (17%), according to the third printout released around 2:35 a.m. Wednesday. There also were 147 blank votes and 17 over votes, which is when a person voted for more than one candidate in the race. 

About an hour after Kiakona’s victory declaration, the Maui County Clerk’s Office announced that there were still uncured ballots in the race and urged voters to check the status of their ballots and make sure to fix any deficiencies so their vote could be counted by 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 10. 

As of 9 a.m. Wednesday, there were 838 total ballot envelopes in Maui County with “deficient conditions,” which could include issues such as a mismatched signature.

Kiakona said his team was trying to reach out to voters and get them to correct any ballot issues.

If Kiakona’s win is confirmed, it would make him the fourth person to ever be elected to a State House as a Green Party candidate, according to the Green Party Elections Database. 

Green Party candidates have been elected to public office in Hawai‘i eight times since the party first qualified for the ballot in 1992, according to Mike Feinstein, the Green Party’s elections database manager and co-founder of the Green Party of California. Seven of those times were for Hawai‘i County Council seats.

West Maui’s District 14 is a reliably blue district that has sent a Democrat to the State House in every election since 2002. Earlier this year, Cochran’s party switch opened the door for Patel to earn the Democratic nomination in August. 

After the first printout at around 7 p.m. Tuesday night, Patel jumped out in front with 2,105 votes to Kiakona’s 1,690 votes and Cochran’s 853 votes. By the second printout at around 9 p.m., his 415-vote lead had shrunk to 70 as he led with 2,536 votes to Kiakona’s 2,466 votes and Cochran’s 1,071 votes. 

Patel said he was “feeling pretty optimistic after the first printout” but took note of the closing gap in the second. That night, he was “in and out of sleep in a way, just because it was so top of mind,” before he woke up around the time that the third printout was released with Kiakona in the lead.

“I was surprised to see when I woke up in the morning that it had flipped,” Patel said Wednesday afternoon. 

Kiakona said he tried to stay up for the final results but finally fell asleep at around 4 a.m. 

“Regardless of what the outcome was, I knew that tomorrow my work would be the same — take care of community,” Kiakona said. “It would just be a little bit of a different approach of how I do that. But I wasn’t worried.” 

By 5 a.m. he was getting phone calls from excited supporters, and he woke up to find himself in the lead.

“I was just humbled seeing those numbers, knowing that this community actually came out to support something that they believed in, and I’m going to do my best to make sure that I don’t let them down,” Kiakona said. 

Cochran did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The results as they stand don’t appear to meet the requirements for an automatic recount under Hawai‘i state law, which triggers a recount if the difference in votes is equal to or less than 100 votes or 0.5% of the total number of votes cast for the contest, whichever is greater. In this case, 100 votes would be the threshold, and the difference between Kiakona and Patel is more than that. 

Kiakona said he figured it might come down to the wire after he heard and saw many people casting ballots at the voting service center, which are often counted after the early mail-in ballots. Many people who had never voted before or didn’t care about politics were calling and messaging him to say they’d cast their ballots. 

For him, simply seeing the increase in civic engagement and the hundreds of people who came to his joint election watch party with Maui County Council Member Tamara Paltin and Office of Hawaiian Affairs candidate Ke‘eaumoku Kapu on Tuesday night was a big win. 

He also gave kudos to Patel “for being a standup person,” and “taking the high road and making sure that we were speaking to why we should be the ones elected, not why the others shouldn’t be.” 

“I appreciate Sne for keeping it clean, keeping things cordial,” he said. “For Elle, I thank her for her service that she has given to this community. I know there are little shots taken here and there, but for me, that’s water under the bridge. And regardless, this community needs us, whether you’ve won or not.”

Patel said: “One thing’s certain: that there’s strong support for both myself and Pā‘ele.”

“We both have agreed, whoever wins, to help support each other in some of the things that we want to have accomplished for our community, so I’m hopeful that that still stands, either way,” Patel said. “I’m really proud that we ran a great, a clean, really respectful campaign. People have reached out and really appreciated the way that the campaign was run.”