For more than three decades, the Green Party of Hawaii ran candidates, built local chapters, and waited for a breakthrough that never came. On Nov 3, 2026, it finally came, in a Lahaina district still rebuilding from fire.
Paele Kiakona, a community organizer from Lahaina, won Hawaii House District 14 as a Green. He defeated Democrat Sne Patel and Republican incumbent Elle Cochran. The final count, released Nov 10, 2026, gave Kiakona 3,025 votes, Patel 2,906 votes, and Cochran 1,242 votes. The margin was 119 votes.
The result is not certified yet. Nov 23, 2026, is the last day to file objections, and the Hawaii Office of Elections is expected to certify the final results later in November. That caution matters, and this article states it plainly. The count is final. Certification is still to come.
What is already clear is the scale of the moment. Kiakona is the first Green ever elected to the Hawaii Legislature. He is the first candidate from any party other than the Democrats or Republicans ever elected to that legislature. He is also the first Green elected to any state legislature in the United States since 2012.
The count that changed overnight
Election night in District 14 looked like a loss for Kiakona. After the second printout, at about 9 p.m. on Nov 3, Patel led with 40.8 percent to Kiakona 39.7 percent. The early returns favored the Democrat, and the Green campaign went to sleep behind.
By the third printout, at 2:35 a.m. on Nov 4, the race had turned. Kiakona led with 2,991 votes, Patel had 2,884, and Cochran had 1,236. The margin was 107 votes. The lead held through the days that followed, as election workers cured ballots with signature problems.
The final count, released Nov 10, 2026, moved the margin to 119 votes. Kiakona gained 12 more votes than Patel during curing. The totals were Kiakona 3,025, Patel 2,906, and Cochran 1,242, out of 7,173 votes cast for candidates in the race.
Percentages in this article use votes cast for candidates as the base. On that base, Kiakona took 42.2 percent, Patel 40.5 percent, and Cochran 17.3 percent. Some reports give 41.2 percent, 39.6 percent, and 16.9 percent. Those figures use total ballots cast as the base, including blank and over votes. The two sets of figures describe the same count. The base is the difference.
Statewide turnout was low. About 42.9 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the Nov 3, 2026, general election, just under 366,000 ballots in total. In a low turnout election, a few hundred votes in a single district can decide a seat. In District 14, 119 votes did.
Who Paele Kiakona is
Kiakona was born and raised in Lahaina, on Maui. He is Native Hawaiian. He graduated from Kamehameha Schools Hawaii Campus and attended the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Before the 2023 wildfires, he worked in the service industry.
In August 2023, when fire swept through Lahaina, he traveled from his home in Honokohau Valley to his grandmother’s house in Lahaina to warn her. Her house was destroyed. His account of that journey spread widely online, and it became the start of his public life as an organizer.
After the fires, he became president of the Save Honolua Coalition and a leader of Lahaina Strong, the community organization that pressed for stronger regulation of short term rental properties and for a recovery led by Lahaina residents themselves. In May 2025, he was appointed to the Maui County Board of Water Supply.
He announced his candidacy on Mar 11, 2026. He was persuaded to run as a Green by Jackie Keefe, who became his campaign manager. His platform rested on the Green Party Four Pillars: Grassroots Democracy, Environmental Wisdom, Social Justice, and Peace. In local terms, that meant an opportunity for local families to afford to live, work, and thrive on Maui, living in balance with the land and water, transparent and accountable leadership, rebuilding Lahaina safely, more affordable housing for local families, protecting Maui land and water, and greater accountability in government.
A campaign built on Lahaina recovery
District 14 covers the Lahaina area, including communities that lived through the 2023 fire and the slow recovery that followed. the Kiakona campaign was not built on television ads or a large war chest. It was built on three years of visible work in that recovery, on Lahaina Strong meetings, on water and housing fights, and on a reputation earned before he ever filed to run.
That record gave him something money could not buy in this race: trust from voters who had watched him show up. It also gave him endorsements that carried weight on Maui. The five largest unions in Hawaii backed him: the Hawaii Government Employees Association, ILWU Local 142, the Hawaii State Teachers Association, United Public Workers, and UNITE HERE Local 5. The Sierra Club Hawaii Chapter endorsed him on Sept 3, 2026.
The money told a different story from the result. As of September 2026, Patel had raised 66,729 dollars, Kiakona 30,714 dollars, and Cochran 1,600 dollars. Patel outspent Kiakona by more than two to one. Kiakona won anyway.
The primary results in August 2026 showed how open the seat was. Patel won the Democratic primary with 995 votes, 31.5 percent, ahead of Ashley Olson with 931 and Kanamu Balinbin with 726. Cochran ran unopposed in the Republican primary, with 726 votes. Kiakona ran unopposed for the Green nomination, with 181 votes. None of the three arrived in November with a commanding base. The general election was there to be won.
The other side of the race
Cochran history in this seat helps explain the result. She was elected in 2022 and 2024 as a Democrat. On Mar 16, 2026, she switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. She then ran for reelection as a Republican incumbent, in a district where voters had first elected her as a Democrat.
Her switch changed the balance of the Hawaii House going into the election. Before it, the House had 41 Democrats and 10 Republicans. Her move took the Republican caucus to 10. After Nov 3, the Republican count fell to 6.
Patel, for her part, ran as the Democrat in a district that had long voted Democratic, and she led on election night. She lost the lead in the overnight count and never regained it. Her campaign raised the most money in the race and finished second by 119 votes.
The other Greens on the Hawaii ballot in 2026 did not win. Jordan Conley ran for the United States House in District 1 and came in third of four candidates, losing to Representative Ed Case. Jesse Fitzgerald ran for Hawaii House District 50 and lost to Democrat Mike Lee, who received more than 75 percent of the vote against Fitzgerald 15.8 percent. Kiakona win was the exception in Hawaii, not part of a statewide Green wave.
A first, in context
To understand how rare this win is, it helps to count. The Green Party of the United States elections database counts nine people who have served in state legislatures as Greens. Five were directly elected as Greens. Four switched parties while in office.
The five directly elected Greens were Audie Bock, elected to the California Assembly in a special election in 1999; John Eder, elected to the Maine House in 2002 and reelected in 2004; Richard Carroll, elected to the Arkansas House in 2008; Fred Smith, elected to the Arkansas House in 2012; and now Paele Kiakona, elected to the Hawaii House in 2026.
Counting election wins rather than people, that is six direct election wins, because Eder won twice. Counting people, Kiakona is the fifth Green ever directly elected to a state legislature. No Green has ever been elected to a state senate. Every directly elected Green won a House or Assembly seat.
Two of the five, Carroll and Smith, later joined the Democrats after winning as Greens. The four who switched while in office were Matt Ahearn in New Jersey in 2003, Ralph Chapman in Maine in 2017, Henry John Bear in Maine in 2017, and Shane Robinson in Maryland in 2018.
The Hawaii Green Party has been on the ballot since 1992. Its founders included Nick Nikhilananda and the late Ira Rohter. The party has run 87 candidates for office since 1992, according to the Green Party elections database manager Mike Feinstein. A couple of Greens were elected to the Hawaii County Council in the 1990s. None had been elected since, until Kiakona.
Gloria Mattera of the Green Party of the United States put the result this way: “Paele Kiakona didn’t just run; he shattered the status quo and won House District 14”
University of Hawaii political analyst Colin Moore, quoted by the Green Party, said: “I believe that he becomes the fifth Green Party member elected to a state legislature ever”
That framing is exact if the count is people directly elected. It is also a reminder of how long the gap has been. Fourteen years passed between Smith victory in 2012 and Kiakona win in 2026.
What changes in Honolulu
The Hawaii House will have 51 seats in the next session: 44 Democrats, 6 Republicans, and 1 Green. Going into the election, the House was 41 Democrats and 10 Republicans. The Republican caucus lost four seats.
The Senate will have 25 seats: 22 Democrats, 2 Republicans, and 1 Independent. Before the election, the Senate was 23 Democrats and 2 Republicans. Senator Brenton Awa left the Republican Party on Nov 9, 2026, after losing the race for United States House District 2 to Jill Tokuda, and now sits as an Independent. Samantha DeCorte succeeds Awa as Senate minority leader for the 2027 session.
One open question is how Kiakona intends to caucus. As of Nov 2026, that had not been settled in public reporting. In a House with 44 Democrats, a single Green vote rarely decides an outcome on its own. What it does decide is presence: a Green voice in the room, a Green vote on the record, and a Green name on the roster where none had ever stood before.
The legislative session itself convenes in January 2027. Under the Hawaii Constitution, a legislator term begins on the day of the general election, Nov 3, 2026.
What is still open
Three things should be watched before this story is treated as closed.
First, certification. The result is not certified as of Nov 13, 2026. The last day to file objections is Nov 23, 2026. Certification is expected later in November. Until then, the correct language is that Kiakona won the final count, not that the result is certified.
Second, the official record. The Hawaii Office of Elections results site could not be opened directly during research for this article. The totals used here are verified from the Final Statewide Summary Report as republished by Maui Now and from the official PDF reports mirrored by Hawaii Free Press. No other totals were substituted. If the Office of Elections publishes a corrected total, this article should be corrected to match it.
Third, national coverage. No Associated Press news story on the win was found as of Nov 13, 2026. The Associated Press publishes Hawaii election results data, but no Associated Press news article on Kiakona turned up in searches. Coverage found so far is Civil Beat, Maui Now, the Honolulu Star Advertiser, Ballot Access News, Independent Political Report, and the Green Party of the United States site. The race has not been described as called by the Associated Press or another decision desk in any source found. The result rests on the Office of Elections final count.
One claim in circulation should be read with care. A release from Our Hawaii called Kiakona the only elected Green Party member in the United States. Read literally, that is wrong. Greens hold many local offices across the country. The correct reading is the only Green in a state legislature.
What 2024 already showed in Dearborn
Hawaii is not the first place where Green strength surprised the two large parties. Dearborn showed it two years ago, in the 2024 presidential election.
Nationally, Green candidate Jill Stein received 862,049 votes in 2024, 0.56 percent of the national popular vote, according to the Federal Election Commission totals. She appeared on the ballot in 38 states plus the District of Columbia. In Michigan, she received 44,607 votes, 0.79 percent statewide.
Dearborn was a different story. In Dearborn, Stein received 7,697 votes. The final official count gave her 18.37 percent of the presidential vote in the city, against 17,796 votes and 42.48 percent for Donald Trump, and 15,189 votes and 36.26 percent for Kamala Harris. That was one of the strongest Green showings in any American city in 2024, and it came in a city Joe Biden had won by a margin of 3 to 1 in 2020.
One number from election night needs care, because it still circulates. An early NBC projection reported by Newsweek on Nov 6, 2024, put Stein at 22 percent in Dearborn, with Trump at 47 percent and Harris at 28 percent. That was an early projection, not the final count. The final official count, from the City of Dearborn, is 18.37 percent for Stein. This article uses the final count, and names the early projection only so readers who remember the 22 percent figure know where it came from and why it changed.
The reason for the Dearborn result was not a mystery. Stein campaigned in Dearborn several times, and she made opposition to the war in Gaza and support for an immediate ceasefire central to her campaign. Many Dearborn voters, Arab American and Muslim voters in particular, had watched the Democratic administration continue military support for Israel through the war, and they used their presidential vote to say so. The Green vote in Dearborn in 2024 was a protest vote with a clear address: Gaza.
That strength did not automatically carry into 2026. In the Nov 3, 2026, Dearborn election, Green candidates for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general all finished under 2 percent in Dearborn. The Green straight party ticket drew 199 votes, 0.74 percent. Wissam Charafeddine, running for the Michigan State Board of Education as a Green, received 4,792 votes in Dearborn, 6.36 percent, and did not win a seat. A presidential protest vote, it turns out, is not the same as a down ballot base. It has to be built, race by race, the way Kiakona built his in Lahaina.
The duopoly, and what makes the Greens different
American politics is run by two parties, and the system is built to keep it that way. The Democrats and Republicans control ballot access rules in most states, they control the presidential debates, they dominate the news coverage, and they raise the money. A candidate outside the two parties starts every race with less of everything: less money, less media, less access, and a constant warning from both sides that a vote for a third party is a wasted vote.
The Green Party answer to that system is not to outspend it. It is to refuse its money.
The Green Party of the United States accepts no corporate donations. Its stated policy is that it does not accept donations from corporations, political action committees, 527 organizations, or soft money. Its own fundraising pages state that it does not take a penny in SuperPAC money, and that its candidates answer to the people, not to the corporations. Green candidates campaign on the same refusal extended further: no money from corporate PACs, and no money from lobbyists. They take donations from individuals only.
That is a real difference, and it has a real cost. A party that refuses corporate money, PAC money, and SuperPAC money will always be outspent. Stein 862,049 votes nationally in 2024 came with a fraction of the money the two large parties spent. Kiakona 30,714 dollars in fundraising, against Patel 66,729 dollars, is the same pattern at district level. The Greens trade money for independence. No corporate donor can threaten to withdraw support if a Green candidate opposes a war, supports a ceasefire, backs single payer health care, or demands a Green New Deal, because no corporate donor is funding the candidate in the first place.
The two large parties, by contrast, are funded by the interests they are supposed to regulate: corporations, banks, military contractors, and lobbyists for foreign governments among them. That funding does not buy every vote, and many individual Democrats and Republicans vote their conscience. But it sets the limits of what their parties will say and do. A party that takes money from military contractors will struggle to oppose war. A party that takes money from health insurers will struggle to support single payer. A party that takes money from fossil fuel companies will struggle to act on climate.
The Green Party Ten Key Values name the alternative directly: grassroots democracy, social justice, ecological wisdom, nonviolence, decentralization, community based economics, feminism, respect for diversity, personal and global responsibility, and future focus. The first of those values, grassroots democracy, is the reason for the money rule. A party that answers to donors cannot answer to voters. A party that answers only to individual donors and to its members can.
That is also why a Green win matters beyond the seat itself. Kiakona did not win because he outspent his opponents. He won because three years of organizing in Lahaina gave voters a reason to trust him, and because his party gave him a platform that did not have to be cleared with a donor first. Dearborn voters did the same thing in 2024, when they gave Stein 18.37 percent without any corporate machine behind her. The duopoly tells voters they have two choices. Hawaii and Dearborn both show that voters are starting to answer back.
Why this matters in Dearborn
Dearborn readers may ask what a Hawaii House race has to do with this city. The answer is in the values and in the work.
The Green Party of the United States stands for peace over war, diplomacy over expulsion, grassroots democracy, ecological wisdom, social justice, and the self determination of peoples. Those are the values Dearborn Blog writes from openly. They are also the values that carried Kiakona campaign: a Lahaina organizer, backed by unions and by a community that had lived through fire, winning a seat that the two large parties had treated as theirs to trade between them.
Wissam Charafeddine, who operates Dearborn Blog, served as a national Steering Committee Co Chair of the Green Party of the United States and as a Michigan Green Party delegate. He authored Proposal 1332, adopted by the Green Party of the United States on Nov 8, 2026, and served as its floor manager. He is building Vote Green, a movement to grow Green Party membership toward one million by the summer of 2028.
In 2026, he ran for the Michigan State Board of Education as a Green. In Dearborn, he received 4,792 votes, 6.36 percent, and did not win a seat. That result, like Kiakona early count, is a reminder that Green campaigns often start behind. Kiakona story is a reminder that they do not always finish there.
A win in Lahaina does not change a single vote in Dearborn. It does change the answer to a question Green organizers hear in every city, including this one: can a Green actually win a state legislative seat? For the first time since 2012, the answer is yes, and the proof is a name, a district, and a margin of 119 votes.
Sources and References
- Civil Beat, Chad Blair, Nov 12, 2026, “Hawaii Green Party Finally Lodges Big Win After Decades”. https://www.civilbeat.org/2026/11/hawaii-green-party-finally-lodges-win-after-decades/
- Maui Now, Nov 11, 2026, “It is official: Paele Kiakona secures historic win in West Maui house race following final vote count”. https://mauinow.com/2026/11/11/its-official-pa%CA%BBele-kiakona-secures-historic-win-in-west-maui-house-race-following-final-vote-count/
- Maui Now, “2026 Hawaii General Election Results” page. Republishes the Final Statewide Summary Report, released 8:14 p.m. Nov 10, 2026. https://mauinow.com/2026/11/03/2026-hawaii-general-election-results/
- Decode the Vote, Hawaii House District 14, 2026 general election. https://www.decodethevote.com/2026/11/03/state/house/hi/14/
- Hawaii Free Press, “2026 General Election Results”. Mirrors of the official Office of Elections PDF reports. https://www.hawaiifreepress.com/Articles-Main/ID/49939/2026-General-Election-Results
- Green Party of the United States Elections Database, “Greens in State Legislatures”. https://www.gpelections.org/greens-in-office/greens-in-state-legislatures/
- Green Party of the United States, gp.org, Nov 4, 2026, Chad Blair, Civil Beat reprint, “Paele Kiakona: Hawaii Green Party Candidate Makes History, Edges Democrat”. https://www.gp.org/paele_kiakona_hawaii_green_party_candidate_makes_history
- Maui Now, Oct 25, 2026, “In West Maui, Democrat turned Republican defends House seat against Lahaina Strong organizer, local business advocate”. https://mauinow.com/2026/10/25/in-west-maui-democrat-turned-republican-defends-house-seat-against-lahaina-strong-organizer-local-business-advocate/
- Independent Political Report, Jordan Willow Evans, Nov 2026, “Green Party Candidate Appears to Win Hawaii House Seat in Historic Legislative Victory”. https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2026/11/green-party-candidate-appears-to-win-hawaii-house-seat-in-historic-legislative-victory/
- Ballot Access News, Richard Winger, Nov 4, 2026, “Green Party Wins a Legislative Seat in Hawaii”. https://ballot-access.org/2026/11/04/green-party-wins-a-legislative-seat-in-hawaii/
- Our Hawaii PAC news release, Nov 4, 2026, republished by Hawaii Free Press, “Hawaii Socialists Claim 14 Election Victories”. https://www.hawaiifreepress.com/Articles-Main/ID/49943/Hawaii-Socialists-Claim-14-Election-Victories
- Green Party of the United States, gp.org, Sept 30, 2026, “Five of Hawaii largest labor unions unite behind Paele Kiakona”. https://www.gp.org/p_ele_kiakona_five_of_hawai_i_s_largest_labor_unions_unite_behind_p_ele_kiakona
- Aloha State Daily, Nov 4, 2026, “Democrats hold onto their seats in low turnout midterms”. https://alohastatedaily.com/2026/11/04/democrats-hold-onto-their-seats-in-low-turnout-midterms/
- Independent Political Report, Dec 2024, “Dearborn Greens Submit Proposal for New State Arab and Muslim Caucus”. Final Dearborn 2024 presidential count: Stein 7,697 votes, 18.37 percent of 42,923 votes cast; Trump plurality. https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2024/12/dearborn-greens-submit-proposal-for-new-arab-and-muslim-caucus/
- Newsweek, Nov 6, 2024, “Jill Stein wins 22% of vote in Dearborn as Gaza stings Harris: network”. Early NBC projection, not the final count: Stein 22 percent, Trump 47 percent, Harris 28 percent.
- Federal Election Commission official 2024 presidential totals, as compiled by Election.org: Jill Stein, Green, 862,049 votes, 0.56 percent nationally. https://election.org/election/2024/us-president
- Michigan Secretary of State, official 2024 general election results, via the American Presidency Project: Stein, Green, 44,607 votes, 0.79 percent in Michigan. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/election-maps/2024/2024_mi.pdf
- Green Party of the United States, gp.org, “When you give, we grow”: the party does not take a penny in SuperPAC money, and its candidates answer to the people, not the corporations. https://www.gp.org/when_you_give_we_grow
- Green Party of the United States, gp.org, Year End Sustainer contribution rules: the party accepts no corporation donations; contributions are not from a corporation, labor organization, Political Action Committee, or national bank. https://www.gp.org/yearendsustainer
- Green Party of the United States, Wikipedia summary of party policy: the party does not accept donations from corporations, political action committees, 527 organizations, or soft money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_the_United_States
Editorial Disclaimer
This article reports the final vote count released Nov 10, 2026, for Hawaii House District 14. The result is not certified as of Nov 13, 2026, and Nov 23, 2026, is the last day to file objections. Vote totals are taken from the Final Statewide Summary Report as republished by Maui Now and from official PDF reports mirrored by Hawaii Free Press, because the Hawaii Office of Elections results site could not be opened directly during research. Percentages use votes cast for candidates as the base, and that base is named in the article. Dearborn Blog will correct this article if the Office of Elections publishes a different certified total.
