{"id":288804,"date":"2026-07-07T02:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T02:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/288804\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T02:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T02:36:09","slug":"new-york-times-flags-rep-ed-case-as-vulnerable-in-hawaiis-1st-district-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/288804\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Times flags Rep. Ed Case as vulnerable in Hawaii\u2019s 1st District primary"},"content":{"rendered":"

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The New York Times has identified U.S. Rep. Ed Case as one of six Democrats vulnerable in upcoming primaries,<\/a> drawing national attention to his race against state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole for Hawaii\u2019s 1st Congressional District seat.<\/p>\n

The national spotlight<\/p>\n

The Times characterized Case as the kind of veteran moderate at risk of losing to a progressive challenger \u2014 a pattern seen in four recent Democratic primaries.<\/p>\n

Case pushed back on the assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith due respect to the New York Times, they don\u2019t know Hawai\u2019i,\u201d Case said in a statement. \u201cThis election remains about who can best solve our problems like our unacceptable cost of living and best represent all of our Hawai\u2019i in Congress in challenging times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keohokalole\u2019s opening move<\/p>\n

Keohokalole launched his first media buy with an ad focused on name pronunciation, featuring a jingle and children helping viewers sound out his name.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to make it fun and give people a chance to hear it,\u201d Keohokalole said. \u201cI\u2019m excited about it. We\u2019ve gotten a lot of feedback already.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ad contrasts with Case\u2019s messaging, which centers on seniority and legislative power.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an eight-year member of our powerful Appropriations Committee, I\u2019ve successfully funded over $300 million for over 54 worthy community projects across my district,\u201d Case said in campaign video.<\/p>\n

Keohokalole pointed to national trends as favorable to his campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you can see from races across the country, people want change,\u201d he said. \u201cIncumbents are having a hard time holding their seats because things are not going well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Money and name recognition favor Case<\/p>\n

Case holds a significant fundraising advantage, having collected more than $800,000 compared to Keohokalole\u2019s $588,000. More than half of Case\u2019s contributions came from political action committees, while Keohokalole\u2019s funding came primarily from individual donors.<\/p>\n

Case also holds a commanding cash-on-hand advantage \u2014 nearly $900,000, more than triple Keohokalole\u2019s reserves.<\/p>\n

University of Hawaii political science professor and HNN political analyst Colin Moore said the race may not follow the national pattern.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still would give Ed Case the advantage going into the election because of his name recognition, because Hawaii voters very rarely turn out incumbents, especially those they\u2019ve known for years or decades,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n

With the money and recognition advantage, Case has declined to debate Keohokalole.<\/a><\/p>\n

Keohokalole said his campaign is focused on a grassroots strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re getting our message out right now on digital, on social, knocking on doors, making phone calls,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing this from a grassroots approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore said Case\u2019s position remains strong.<\/p>\n

\u201cEd Case still has a very compelling message that will resonate with many of the sort of voters who always vote in these primaries \u2014 older voters, union voters,\u201d Moore said. \u201cThis is going to be a close race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The New York Times has identified U.S. Rep. Ed Case as one of six Democrats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-288804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}