Ed Case wins Hawaii primary and keeps his seat in Congress after turning back his toughest primary challenge yet from progressive state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole. The longtime Hawaii Democrat prevailed Saturday and will seek another term in the House, preserving his position in a race that highlighted the tension between the party’s establishment wing and its left flank.
Case, who first served in Congress from 2002 to 2007 before returning in 2018, faced a well-funded challenge from Keohokalole, who has served in Hawaii’s state legislature since 2014. Both campaigns raised significant money, though Case entered the contest with a larger war chest. Keohokalole argued that Case had not done enough to confront President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda, including federal immigration operations, and he also targeted Case over a vote for an early version of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, in April 2025.
That earlier version of the SAVE Act would have required voter ID at the polls and proof of citizenship when registering to vote, while still allowing a written affidavit if a voter lacked that documentation. Case defended his approach in comments to Hawaii News Now, saying he would “never” vote in lockstep with his party. On the citizenship issue, he said concerns about noncitizen voting were legitimate, while also describing the measure as a response to a problem he did not believe existed in the election system.
Keohokalole rejected that view, telling the outlet that the issue was “a solution in search of a problem” and that there was no security problem in Hawaii’s election system. The clash put voting rules, immigration enforcement, and party loyalty at the center of the primary fight, giving Democratic voters a clear choice between a veteran incumbent and a challenger aligned with the party’s more progressive wing.
