2010 Hawaii Governor - Aiona vs. Abercrombie

10/26/10 -- The Honolulu Star-Advertiser poll is good news for Abercrombie in that he has a healthier lead than previous polling has shown.  But it also represents a tightening from that polls' earlier iteration. 

10/15/10 -- It looks like we have a race here.  Three polls in a row now have shown this race to be a two- to three-point affair.  This becomes a surprising (looking at the earlier polls) October tossup.

10/10/10 -- It's always dangerous to read too much into a single poll, but the DailyKos/PPP (D) poll showing Abercrombie up by only a point raises more than a few eyebrows.  If Aiona pulls off the win, it will be one of the bigger political comebacks of all time.

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Hawaii is one of our country's most solidly Democratic states.  For years, the politics of this one-time nation were governed by a series of Democratic political machines.  But in recent years, the strength of the machines have weakened.  Congressman Ed Case ran a spirited primary campaign against Senator Daniel Akaka in 2006, while the Democrats' percentages in gubernatorial elections steadily declined over the course of the 1990s.

The Democratic machine reached its nadir in 2006, when Governor Linda Lingle -- a Republican elected in 2002 - was reelected with 63 percent of the vote.  But Lingle is term-limited.  Her lieutenant governor, Duke Aiona, is running to become her successor. 

The Democrats nominated Congressman Neil Abercrombie.  Abercrombie is one of the most liberal members of Congress, a former hippie who finally cut his ponytail off in the late 1990s.  The early polls suggest that Abercrombie should win the election handily.