Preliminary Maui election results on Tuesday showed Maui Mayor Richard Bissen ahead of Yuki Lei Sugimura in the race for mayor, putting him in position to keep the office he won by ousting Mike Victorino in the 2024 election. Bissen, 64, had 53.8% of the vote, while Sugimura, 72, had 43.7%.
For a race political observers had described as one of the state’s most consequential, that lead landed as the first real answer to a campaign built around housing and water. It was also the first mayoral election on Maui since the deadly 2023 wildfires, which gave the result added weight well beyond county politics.
The numbers also showed how the contest had changed since the August primary election. Bissen finished that round with 46% of the vote, Sugimura with 33%, and P. Denise La Costa with 11%, leaving Tuesday’s matchup as a clearer test of whether Bissen could hold a lead against a challenger many had treated as a serious threat.
Early returns sharpened that question rather than settling it. Sugimura was trailing by 2,827 votes in early counts, but Bissen’s campaign was already acting as if the race was not over, posting the message “Not pau yet” as supporters packed into the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in Kahului before the first results were read a little after 8 p.m.
Bissen stood smiling softly in the corner by the stage and accepted hugs from campaign staff and family as the crowd reacted to the first numbers. The lead reflected more than one good night of counting: his campaign had also been able to sustain a message through a month of heavy outside spending in support of Sugimura, including nearly $1.8 million on ads, social media posts and mailers, with about $565,000 spent before Sept. 26 and another $19,000 in independent expenditures reported by HIVision 2020.
The fight at the heart of the race was never just about personalities. Bissen and Sugimura split on how to handle the county’s housing shortage and who should control local water infrastructure for the long term, two issues that have defined what voters wanted from the next mayor after the 2023 wildfires. That is why Tuesday’s preliminary count mattered so much: it suggested that, despite the warnings around Sugimura’s challenge, Bissen entered the final stretch with the edge.
What remains unresolved is whether that edge will hold when the count is certified. For now, Maui election results point to a familiar outcome with new stakes — Bissen still leading, and voters leaving the county’s next steps on housing and water in his hands unless the final tally changes the picture.
