Hawaii just became the first state to elect a 100 percent one-party state Senate since 1979

by Stephen Wolf, Daily Kos, Nov 26, 2016 Reprinted with permission. 

Despite good results for Republicans across the country, Hawaii was Hillary Clinton’s best state nationally, voting for her by a resounding 62-32 margin over Donald Trump. Its governor, both senators, and both House members all are Democrats who won lopsided victories over their last Republican opponent. Furthermore, it has only ever voted Republican for president in the 1972 and 1984 Nixon and Reagan landslides. Astoundingly, it’s the only state in the country where Republicans have never controlled the state House of Representatives.

That last streak shows no signs of abating, since Democrats have won both legislative chambers every two years since 1962. In 2016, they just won literally every seat in the 25-member state Senate for the first time since Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959. Not since the dying days of the Solid South has any party won every single seat in any American state legislative chamber. The last time it happened was when Louisiana Democrats swept every state Senate district in 1979, but they later lost two to the Republicans at the next election in 1983.

In 2010, 2012, and 2014, Republican state Sen. Sam Slom was the only member of his party to win a single seat in the Hawaii state Senate. However, in 2016 he finally lost to former Democratic Honolulu City Councilor Stanley Chang by a 53-47 margin after 20 years of representing the 9th District on Oahu’s southeastern shore. As one supporter facetiously quipped when Chang canvassed his neighborhood, now that they have every seat, Hawaii Democrats finally “can get a lot of things done.”

For more info on 2016 state legislative outcomes, see our rundown of the partisan balance in all 50 states.

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