State Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole — the father of three school-age children — may challenge incumbent U.S. Rep. Ed Case to represent urban Honolulu in the 2026 midterm elections, and continues to weigh the need to “right the ship” in Washington, D.C., versus what it would mean for his family if his job requires him to be nearly 5,000 miles and three time zones away from home.
“Local people are going to start suffering from the things that are happening in Washington,” Keohokalole said. “I think we should be pushing back as strongly as possible. … The cruelty of it all that’s happening in Washington is pretty frustrating.”
Keohokalole (D, Kaneohe-Kailua) traces his Hawaiian lineage back to at least seven generations in Kaneohe and his ancestors’ iwi were uncovered in the development of Waikiki and finally buried in a burial mound near the Honolulu Zoo, noted by a marker.
The mound and marker were unveiled when Keohokalole was a senior at Saint Louis School.
Just for his family on the windward side of Oahu, Keohokalole said, “we’re in the chants about Kaneohe. … We know we have been in Kaneohe at least seven generations. My grandfather was the first taxi cab driver in Kaneohe.”
Case often breaks from Hawaii’s three other representatives in Congress — Rep. Jill Tokuda and U.S. Sens. Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz — and has drawn criticism from some Democratic voters in Hawaii who oppose actions by President Donald Trump and his administration.
“One of us is going rogue all the time,” Keohokalole would only say about Case’s political positions and voting record.
In 2022, Keohokalole considered running for the open congressional seat that was being vacated by then-U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele, after Kahele unsuccessfully ran for governor after his first term in Congress.
Kahele, at the time, cited the demands of working in Washington over his young family in Hilo.
Keohokalole did not run and Tokuda, who lives near him in Kaneohe, won the seat to represent rural Oahu and the neighbor islands.
Tokuda told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that federal districting rules differ from Hawaii and Honolulu requirements and that both Case and Keohokalole live in Kaneohe.
Keohokalole publicly announced for the first time that he was considering challenging Case last week on Hawaii News Now’s Spotlight Now program.
In a statement to the Star-Advertiser, Case wrote in an email that:
“Voters deserve choices. For U.S. Representatives, they make that choice every two years.
“Next year, the voters of Hawaii’s great First Congressional District will be asked to decide: why replace my seniority, experience, relationships, influence and accomplishments, including through my Appropriations Committee, as well as my constituent engagement and services, especially in such highly uncertain and challenging times.
“I will continue to work as hard as I possibly can to protect our democracy, solve our challenges, and help our Hawai‘i.”
With only four members of Congress representing Hawaii, Keohokalole said it’s important that all of them collectively fight for Hawaii residents.
He’s heard criticism of Case questioning, “are we getting the best we can out of this seat? We only have four congressional representatives. Are we getting the best we deserve?”
In the state Senate, Keohokalole chairs the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee and also chairs the Senate Native Hawaiian Caucus and co-chairs the Legislative Native Hawaiian Caucus.
He and his wife of 15 years continue to debate what being elected to Congress would mean for their family of a 15-year-old boy and girls, ages 12 and 8.
If he wins election to Congress, Keohokalole and his wife are debating whether it’s best for the family to stay in Kaneohe or move to Washington, D.C.
“It’s not an easy decision,” he said. “I would much rather live in Kaneohe year-round. But the role is important and impacting my friends and family I’ve known my whole life.”
At the same time, Keohokalole said, “the chance to go up there and hopefully right the ship would be an amazing responsibility.”
The reaction to actions by Trump and his administration — especially to cuts in Medicaid under the budget bill that Republicans just passed — could affect Republican control of either or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections.
For Hawaii, Keohokalole said, the new Medicaid job requirements required in the Republican budget will be “catastrophic” in Hawaii’s efforts to provide Medicaid funding for Hawaii’s homeless population that gets them medical and medical health help toward the goal of moving them off the street.
“With the homeless, the first thing we do is get them on health insurance,” Keohokalole said. “How are we going to expect these people to meet a work requirement every six months? This is the kind of stuff I think about. We don’t even know the magnitude of the damage. We just know its going to be difficult.”
Tokuda has two sons at her alma mater, Castle High School, and flies home to be with them and her husband most weekends, which includes whirlwind visits to constituents across the neighbor islands.
In between, Tokuda said she’s greeted every Thursday after landing and being greeted with “my mommy do list” that’s “very long every week.”
Her responsibilities include “making sure the fridge is stocked,” Tokuda said.
She has not spoken to her Kaneohe neighbor, Keohokalole, about the travel and time zone demands as a voting member of Congress the farthest away from Washington, D.C.
But Tokuda appreciates the debate that must be going on in Keohalole’s house.
She was in Kaneohe over the weekend and said, “This week, I’ll fly back (to Washington D.C.) Sunday and I’ll come home Thursday night, then I’ll leave on Sunday again. So my normal rotation is I’ll leave D.C. Thursday right after votes and I’ll get home at 10 o’clock at night and then on Sunday at 5 o’clock (at night) I’ll leave again and then I’ll repeat the process.”
The stress on her body already required Tokuda to have back surgery last year and she may need another.
“This is brutal when you think about flying back and forth,” she said.
She and her husband continue to discuss whether to relocate the family to Washington, D.C.
But, like Keohokaloe, they have deep family roots in Kaneohe and want to keep their children around them.
Tokuda said she also was told by a House colleague that relocating her family to Washington, D.C., only means that she’ll have to leave them behind when she flies back to Hawaii.
Ultimately, she said, “I definitely think it was the right decision. … It was important to me to keep things stable.”
Keohokalole said he’s considering running for Congress to change the direction of policies that effect families like his and others trying to survive in Hawaii.
“We should have people who have kids represent us in Congress,” Keohokalole said.
Source: The Garden Island