• It’s time for Hawaiʻi to reject the status quo of a two-party system dominated by Democrats.

Running for office as a candidate who is not a member of either the Democrat or Republican Party is exceedingly difficult. But why is that, at a time when more people than ever don’t feel represented?

Civil Beat
By Ben Emery
January 27, 2026

Both of the “two parties” are beholden to corporate interests, while the Green Party is truly grassroots.

But if you ever tell people that you’re planning to run for office as a Green in Hawaiʻi, you usually receive one of a handful of responses:

• You should just run as a Democrat (because): a) most of the Democrats aren’t really Democrats anyway; or b) you’ll never win as a Green.
  
  
• Oh, I’d vote for you as a Green! But not a Democrat.
  
  
• What’s the Green Party?

The people who tell you to “just run Democrat” are ignoring that somewhere around half of our eligible voting population does not participate in our elections. (Here, I’m referencing Hawaiʻi, but nationwide more than one-third of eligible voters sat out the 2024 presidential election!)

These people are ignoring the fact that the system isn’t working for us.

Year after year, families continue to move away because they can’t afford to stay. Our keiki move away for school or other opportunities and often don’t come back because they know they can’t build the life that they want (and deserve) in today’s Hawaiʻi.

Running as a Green in 2026 isn’t about simply winning an election. It’s about building a movement. It’s about choosing to say “I want to represent my community, but my core values matter as much as winning the seat.” People want to know that their elected officials have their best interests in mind.

Let’s face it: tracking legislation is a slog that requires constant vigilance. But what if we lived in a world where we could trust that our elected officials would make decisions based on what they actually believe is best for the next seven generations?

If this sounds too altruistic, that only highlights that this is not what we have in place now. That’s why organizations like HAPA, Common Cause, Our Hawaiʻi, 350 Hawaiʻi, and many others have to fight so hard to mobilize and advocate for policies that would create the world in which our elected officials are looking out for our people and the planet.

Just last week, Civil Beat posted an op-ed about the failures of our current voting system. The Green Party has been advocating for ranked-choice voting for decades, but the parties in power in Hawaiʻi understand that it would loosen their vice grip on that very power.

The Green Party is the opposition party that Hawaiʻi needs. The Green Party stands for grassroots democracy, social and economic justice, nonviolence, and ecological wisdom.

Simply put, that means: People power. Elected officials are making decisions every day that impact our lives, and we all deserve our voices to be heard.

Equal opportunity. We must actively challenge discrimination and advocate for fair distribution of resources.

Peace and de-escalation are essential. A war-torn world benefits only those in power and no one else.
We are a part of nature. If we are not protecting the ʻāina, we are contributing to the problem.

It’s time to reject the status quo. If you, too, believe that it is time to change course, please join us!

To stay informed or to learn more, please follow @GPofHawaii on Instagram and sign up for our email updates at GreenPartyOfHawaii.org.

The only way out of this is through, and we must get there together.

Ben Emery has been a served as a past county co-chair for the Green Party in Hawaiʻi and previously ran for the U.S. Congress and state Senate. He is a regenerative small scale farmer, an author and a current Green Party of Hawai'i national delegate.