Democratic Socialists Defeated in Hawaii Dem Primary

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

A centrist, fiscally-conservative Democrat defeated five other high-profile candidates to become the Democratic nominee for Honolulu’s representative in Congress on Saturday.

Former Congressman Ed Case, a 65-year-old fiscal conservative, defeated Lt. Gov. Doug Chin and 29-year-old Kaniela Ing to secure the Democratic nomination for Congress with 40 percent of the vote.

Chin, the Hawaii attorney general who fought the Trump administration’s ban on travel to the U.S. from several Middle Eastern countries, received 25.5 percent of the vote, and Ing, a state representative endorsed by Bronx, New York, socialist Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, received 6.5 percent of the vote.

Case will face off against former state representative Cam Cavasso, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate, in November.

Incumbent Hawaii Gov. David Ige, a Democrat, also won his primary election in the race for governor. Ige defeated Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI) with 51.4 percent of the vote. Hanabusa, who resigned her congressional seat to run for governor, received 44.4 percent of the vote.

Ige will run against state Rep. Andria Tupola, the winner of Hawaii’s Republican gubernatorial primary.

The primary election results in the deep-blue state of Hawaii were another blow to the Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wing of the party, made up of socialist Democrats who are increasingly trying to take their message mainstream.

Ocasio-Cortez, the socialist Democrat who pulled off an upset victory against high-ranking establishment Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) in the Democratic primary for a New York City congressional district, has been stumping for socialist Democrat candidates across the U.S.

But many of the candidates whom she endorsed, such as Michigan gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed, have lost to establishment Democrats.

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