HONOLULU, Hawaii — Democratic Governor Josh Green has won re-election in Hawaii, defeating Republican challenger Gary Cordery in the November 3 election. The Associated Press called the race for Green at midnight Eastern on Wednesday, and the state's own count backed the call by a wide margin: Hawaii votes largely by mail and releases its results in scheduled printouts, and the second printout, released by the state Office of Elections at 9:10 p.m. Hawaii time on election night, already showed the race beyond doubt.
Source: Associated Press
In that second printout, Green and his running mate Derek Kawakami had 227,046 votes, or 73.5 percent, against 75,978 votes, or 24.6 percent, for Cordery and his running mate Daniel Anthony — a margin of 151,068 votes. The AP's running count listed the same vote totals, with an estimated 75.43 percent of the vote counted. Later printouts will add the remaining ballots, but no realistic path remains for the order of finish to change. These are unofficial counts; the official result follows certification by the Office of Elections.
Source: Maui Now / Hawaii Office of Elections
A landslide in a deep-blue state
The scale of the win fits Hawaii's modern politics. Green, a physician who served as the state's lieutenant governor before first winning the governorship in 2022, was seeking a second four-year term. Cordery, a Republican businessman who had also run for governor in 2022, was trying to break a long drought: Republicans have not won a gubernatorial election in Hawaii since 2006, when Linda Lingle won re-election. In a state that votes heavily Democratic in federal and state races alike, the governor's contest turned on the incumbent's record rather than on party competition.
Source: 2026 Hawaii gubernatorial election
The primaries, held on August 8, 2026, foreshadowed the general election. Green secured the Democratic nomination with 88.5 percent of the vote — 184,289 votes out of 208,217 cast in his primary — against three other candidates. Cordery won the Republican nomination with 75.8 percent, taking 36,428 votes against Ken Fujiyama's 11,599, or 24.2 percent. Both men, in other words, arrived in November with their parties firmly behind them, and the general election followed the state's partisan grain.
Source: 2026 Hawaii gubernatorial election
How Hawaii counts: printouts through the night
Hawaii's counting system explains the shape of election night there. Because most ballots arrive by mail, the state Office of Elections releases results in a series of printouts rather than a continuous county-by-county feed. Maui Now's results coverage, built on those printouts, reported that the next release was expected in the early morning hours of Wednesday, November 4, tentatively between 3 and 6 a.m. Hawaii time, with further counting to follow before certification. The second printout's numbers — the ones behind the AP call — already covered the bulk of the expected vote, which the AP estimated at about three-quarters counted.
Source: Maui Now
Hawaii's governor leads a state of about 1.4 million people whose economy runs on tourism, the U.S. military and the cost of island living — housing, energy and shipping prices that state policy directly shapes. A 73.5-percent re-election also gives Green one of the strongest personal mandates of any governor elected this cycle, and control of the state's agenda for four more years in Honolulu.
What happens next
Counting continues through the remaining printouts until the Office of Elections certifies the result, after which the final official margin will be published. Under Hawaii's constitution, the governor's new term begins on the first Monday in December — December 7, 2026 — when Green will be sworn in for a second four-year term alongside Lieutenant Governor-elect Derek Kawakami. For Cordery and Hawaii Republicans, a second straight defeat in a governor's race, by a wider margin than the primaries promised, renews the party's long search for a formula that can compete in one of America's bluest states.