The real elephant in the room— corporatism. Nationally, Repubs have been the open servants of corporate takeover of US politics. 

As for Hawaii, Repubs were decimated after statehood when locals who knew how hard they had shilled for the plantations and oligarchs. In time, corporatism creeped into Dem politics too and over decades lured pols to drift away from broad public interest. 

Corporate influence set up developer land grabs, tax avoidance, infrastructure shorting, environmental exploitation and an overall regressive tax structure favoring off shore corporations and wealthy.

In all, Hawaii Repubs are still corporatists who give lip service to social policy to even be considered viable. Many give up and switch to being Dems. The Democratic Party is really two parties in one; establishment corporatists and progressives. Media and academics should get the dynamic right so people can be informed. Or has corporatism taken over those realms too? Time to get big biz out of politics.