Richard Bissen led the Maui election results on Tuesday, putting him on track to win reelection as Maui mayor with 53.8% of the vote. Yuki Lei Sugimura trailed at 43.7% in preliminary returns, leaving Bissen ahead as the count moved forward.
At his election results watch party at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in Kahului, Bissen stood smiling softly in the corner by the stage and accepted hugs from campaign staff and family. Campaign bags there carried the words, “Not pau yet.”
Maui Arts & Cultural Center
The preliminary margin came after a campaign shaped by the county’s housing shortage and the long-term ownership of local water infrastructure. The race was Maui’s first mayoral election since the deadly 2023 wildfires, which made the result a close read on how voters were weighing post-disaster recovery.
Bissen, 64, entered the race as the sitting mayor after ousting then-Mayor Mike Victorino in the 2024 election. Sugimura, 72, entered Tuesday as the Maui County Council member seeking to cut into a lead that had already shown up in the August primary election, when Bissen took 46% and she took 33%.
Richard Bissen and Yuki Lei Sugimura
Political observers had said the contest was likely to be one of the most consequential elections in the state, and the available numbers backed up that view. Sugimura was trailing by 2,827 votes in early returns on Tuesday, while outside spending had already pushed nearly $1.8 million toward support for her campaign in the month before the election.
That spending included about $565,000 supporting Sugimura’s campaign prior to Sept. 26 and about $19,000 in independent expenditures from HIVision 2020. Bissen’s lead made the remaining count the only thing standing between preliminary returns and a final result, and the size of the gap gave him room unless later tabulation narrows it sharply.
On Tuesday
The practical question now is simple: whether the lead from Tuesday holds through final certification. For voters watching Maui’s first mayoral race since 2023, the result points to a decisive opening for Bissen and leaves Sugimura needing a late shift in the count to change the outcome.
