With some polls showing Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) ahead of Democratic challenger, Colleen Hanabusa (ConservaDem-HI) and others showing Hanabusa ahead, Saturday's (Aug 9) primary will be a squeaker that depends on the campaigns' abilities to turn out the vote.
Complicating things are the two approaching hurricanes.
First up is Iselle which is predicted to be over the middle of the state on Thursday. Iselle has dropped from a Category 4 to a 3 in the last 12 hours and will hopefully only be a tropical storm by the time it is over the islands. By "only" we mean with 70 mph winds capable of downing trees and torrential rains. No power and flooding could trap voters at home.
Right behind Iselle is Julio which is at the moment a tropical storm but is expected to graduate to full-on hurricane later today. Julio will be impacting the Big Island on election day.
Fortunately at least one county (Maui) made a big push to sign people up for absentee voting last year. Additionally the entire state has walk-in voting sites available through Thursday. However, it looks like folks should beat feet for the early walk-in voting today because by Thursday conditions will be pretty bad.
In 2012 20% of Hawaii voted by absentee ballot. With recent efforts to increase absentee voting this number could well be significantly higher in this election. But that that still leaves a large majority of the voters at the mercy of the weather.