It can be dicey trying to read into special elections to fill the seats of members of Congress who retire before their terms are over. The results of those isolated elections may or may not be a strong indicator of the mood of U.S. voters as a whole, and may or may not predict the sort of candidate voters will favor in regular congressional elections that are still months away.
Even so, what happened in the heavily Democrat state of Hawaii recently was remarkable: A Republican candidate, Charles Djou, won a seat in Congress. It was the first time that had happened in extremely liberal Hawaii in nearly two decades.
Mr. Djou’s victory means he will complete the unexpired term of Democrat U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie. Rep. Abercrombie had been in Congress for 10 terms, but he stepped down to run for governor. Rep.-elect Djou, the son of Thai and Chinese immigrants, comfortably defeated two Democrats in the winner-takes-all special election. He won on a platform of lower taxes and less government spending. Meanwhile, the Democrat candidate favored by the Obama administration and by other top Democrats in Washington finished dead last among the three candidates running.
Might one of the Democrats have beaten Mr. Djou if the other had stepped down? It’s possible, and Mr. Djou will surely face a tough campaign this fall when he seeks a full term.
But in a state that has been lockstep liberal Democrat for almost 20 years, Mr. Djou’s victory is a sign of serious voter unease with Democrat policies in Washington.
With voters in many other parts of the country clearly unhappy, too, big changes may be coming this November.