Hawaiʻi County Democrats

05/09/2026

In this important election year, our party needs to be operating with all positions filled and plenty of volunteers willing to lend a hand. We have some vacancies in our officer positions, and also on some of our committees.

The open opportunities are listed below. Please email [email protected] & let me know where youʻd like to help out.

Assistant Treasurer - this person will serve as one of our county party officers, and will be a voting member of the HCC and the Executive Committee. This member should have some financial experience, and be willing to assist our Treasurer and also serve on the Finance Committee

Kanaka ʻOiwi (male) - this person will also serve as one of our county party officers, and will be a voting member of the HCC and the Executive Committee. This position must be filled by a native Hawaiʻian member.

Nominations & Elections Committee - weʻre looking a few members willing to help with planning our party elections next year when we elect a new slate of officers at our county convention in 2027, and possibly sooner if SCC vacancies occur.

Young Democrats Committee - our Young Dems organization has just become active in the last few months, and weʻre seeking Dems between ages 18-35 whoʻd like to help with planning or whoʻd just like to be contacted when thereʻs a group activity

Event Planning - We have some great events that are just in the planning stages, and we could use some help making decisions and also volunteering on site. Please reply to this email if youʻre able to help with any of these events. The planning meetings will be mostly on Zoom, and we can use your ideas and input!

July 4th Parade - Kona

July 12th Candidate Event - Kona

Grand Rally/Primary - Hilo

Mahalo!

Charles Brister
Hawai`i County Chair

In this important election year, our party needs to be operating with all positions filled and plenty of volunteers willing to lend a hand.  We have some vacancies in our officer positions, and also on some of our committees. 

05/01/2026

Aloha Hawai`i County Democrats!

We had a great convention a couple of weeks ago! We came together, got our platform passed, and nearly all of our resolutions passed! Yay to all of us for putting in the work to move our county party forward.

Congrats to our At-Large SCC Reps for stepping up to represent us at the state level:
Lester (Mike) Klungness and Tina Marie.

We had some spirited moments, great food, and a pretty fun mock election! For those who left early, Plurality voting got us Pete Buttigieg with 23% of the vote. With Ranked Choice Voting, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) led for a while, but after refreshing the tally, Zohran Mamdani took the win with Pete Buttigieg coming in a close second!

If you have any pictures, please pass them my way so we can add them to our socials and website. :)

Also, as mentioned at the convention and as listed on our website, we have our HCC Quarterly Meeting coming up on Sunday, May 3rd. This will be held on Zoom at 2-4pm.

Further details, agenda, and the zoom link is on our website:
https://hawaiicountydemocrats.net/coming-events

If you'd like a calendar invite, click here to add to your calendar:
https://calendar.app.google/wThsUw589qDRVx8f9

Looking forward to seeing you all on Sunday!

- Tina Marie Even
Assistant Secretary, HCC
At-Large SCC Rep

04/13/2026

Registration Required for Delegates and Guests: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/county-convention-2026-registration

https://hawaiicountydemocrats.net/coming-events

04/08/2026

04/06/2026

Our Assistant Secretary, Tina Marie, spent some time at last weeks protest at the Kona Indivisible rally to ask folks what prompted them to show up.

There were a couple of friendly faces including our Regional Chair Gary Bear Usinger and Rep. Kirstin Kahaloa, and visitors on vacation, even a Canadian showing up in solidarity for Democracy!

If you have pictures from protests, feel free to share them in the comments below!

03/31/2026

Hawaii County Democrats had a spirted day going over Platform and Resolutions at our Pre-Convention meeting last week.

Enjoy some photos from our PreConvention meeting and let us know if you see any familiar faces! :)

-----------
Note from our Chair:

"Aloha!

Mahalo nui loa to those of you who had the public roles at yesterday's Pre-Convention. I believe we had a successful event, and definitely accomplished all the work we set out to do.

Ilihia, you did such a great job with live-editing the amendments and helping the members who didn't quite know how to word their suggestions. Seeing the proposed changes on the screen made it so easy for the members to know exactly what they were voting on each time. Kudos to you for securing HGEA as our venue (great location for future HCC meetings), and making sure the members were well-fed. Closing out the meeting with your reading of the Phil Barnes resolution made for a very nice ending.

Tina Marie, terrific job on keeping the minutes, always making sure to get names of those who made motions and seconded motions, and keeping such good humor at all times.

Renee, I know you weren't feeling well yesterday but you came anyway to make sure we got the convention rules handled. Thank you for that, and for being such a reliable advisor about everything.

Noelle, you had the toughest job of the day. There was more discussion about the platform than anything else we did yesterday. Amendments. Amendments to the amendments. Members confused about whether or not they were even making an amendment. People speaking out of turn. All challenging to deal with but you got through it all. Really appreciate you!

Shannon, for your work on platform and for advising Noelle and all of us in your very measured and calm way. You're always so great to have at meetings for those reasons. We missed you in the afternoon. We ended the meeting right on time with unanimous approval of the Phil Barnes resolution. Beautifully written!

Gretchen & Mike, thanks for once again handling the registration table. You do that so well, and you're especially good at making new members feel welcome and included. Which I still remember from when I first got involved. Thanks also for your contributions to the Phil Barnes resolution.

Sunita, Although you were away yesterday, I want to thank you for the packet of resolutions that was so well prepared and organized. Eighteen of them! And believe it or not, we got through them all and adjourned the meeting at 2:30.

Now on to the County Convention....

Charlie"

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Save the Date!

We will be hosting our County Convention Meeting on April 18th on Kona Side (exact location TBA later). Meeting will be from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm

Email Tina Marie, Assistant Secretary for a direct calendar invite reminder: [email protected]

We will post more info as we have it on our events page:
https://hawaiicountydemocrats.net/coming-events

02/28/2026

www.HawaiiCountyDemocrats.net

02/15/2026

Be the change you want to see in the Democratic Party of Hawai`i County! We invite you to show up and run for something!

At these meetings we will be voting to elect:

- District Council Officers and at-large Members
- Delegates and alternates to the DPH State Convention, and
- At-large Delegates to the County Convention (if available in your County)

If you cannot make the Biennial Elections and want to run for ANY of these positions – let your District Chair or someone you know who will be at the meeting so they can nominate you. Make sure your Party membership is up to date by clicking here:
https://secure.ngpvan.com/E_vyVj97Wke7zO27VmppSg2

Your district chairs can be located here:
https://hawaiicountydemocrats.net/contacts

And if you are unsure of which district you are in, check out the Maps link on the Office of Elections website:
https://elections.hawaii.gov/resources/districts-and-precincts/

Hawai`i County Committee follows the same 8 districts for our State House Representatives.

Feel free to reach out should you have any questions!

We hope to see you there!

- Tina Marie
Assistant Secretary
Hawai`i County Committee
Democratic Party

11/01/2025

Let's support The Food Basket!

The federal government shutdown is creating food insecurity for people across the nation, and the situation is especially acute here on Hawaiʻi Island. Federal workers are furloughed, others are still working but without being paid.

Letʻs do what we can to help our neighbors during this difficult time!

If youʻre able to donate to our amazing local food bank The Food Basket, here are three EASY ways to do it:

1) Donate to The Food Basket using this link: https://www.hawaiifoodbasket.org/donate

2) Donate to The Food Basket using this QR Code:

3) Donate to The Food Basket by check:

Checks can be made out to The Food Basket, Inc. and mailed to:
40 Holomua St., Hilo, HI 96720

(The Food Basket Inc. is a 501c(3) tax-exempt organization. Our federal tax identification number is 26-0349475.)

Without the generous support of our donors, we would struggle to continue our services for food insecure households. By donating to The Food Basket you are helping to end hunger on Hawai‘i Island.