Honolulu City Council Chair Tommy Waters is sitting on a $320,000 war chest and has so far spent $130,000 in his bid for reelection to Honolulu City Council District 4, the latest state campaign finance reports show.
His expenditures so far – including $42,000 on printing, postage and freight and $7,000 on advertising and media for the election period through June 30 – exceed the amount Waters spent in his entire 2022 general election run. In that race, he spent $94,000 — or $107,000 in 2026 dollars accounting for inflation – and handily defeated Kaleo Nakoa with over 65% of the vote.
He ended that race with a healthy balance of over $220,000 to build on for this campaign.
This time Waters has stiffer competition. He is facing two political newcomers in the primary and his longtime rival Trevor Ozawa, who has twice beat Waters in elections by fewer than 50 votes — although one of those races was invalidated by a judge.
Waters’ current cash assets far exceed the combined campaign funds of his three challengers by a factor of 12 to 1 with Ozawa, Tara Malia Gregory and Jason Liang together sitting on $27,000 cash-in-hand. Most of that is Ozawa’s, with a little over $23,000 in his account after spending $2,000, mainly on printing and mailing.
District 4 covers East Honolulu from Waikīkī through Kaimukī, Kāhala, and Hawaiʻi Kai.
The reports filed Thursday for the last six months of campaign finance activity show the Waters campaign took in five donations from political action committees together worth $13,310.
The PAC donations came from committees for the Hawaiʻi Regional Council of Carpenters, Plumbers and Pipefitters, Electrical Workers, Operating Engineers and General Contractors.
In the same six-month period, 31 individual donors from the legal, real estate and building development sectors combined gave $44,300.
Of that total, $14,000 came from three executives from the company Mark Development Inc.: President Kyle Watase, CEO Craig Watase and Executive Vice President Paul Watase. The commission filing shows an over-donation of $8,000 by Kyle Watase of Mark Development which was refunded by the campaign.
Individual campaign donations are capped at $8,000 per candidate for both the primary and the general election and Watase had already donated $6,000 the records show.
Waters campaign expenditures between January and June exceeded what he took in, with $68,000 spent on high-volume mailings primarily from Service Printers Hawaiʻi and DMM Enterprises.
Ozawaʻs fundraising for the same period, a total of $20,250, came entirely from 11 individual donations, including three donors who gave $4,000 each. But his spending was limited to under $2,000 for mail, media ads and fees, his expenditure records show. Thatʻs allowed him to maintain a relatively strong surplus ahead of the primary, or a potential runoff.
If a candidate wins 50% plus 1 of the total votes cast in the primary they are declared the outright winner, but if no one achieves that, the top two candidates proceed to the runoff in November.
Gregory took in $1,200 in donations and self-funded her campaign with $800, then spent $850 on media and ads, her report shows.
Liang, a rank-and-file member of the Hawaiʻi Government Employees Association, is the leanest operator, contributing $625 of his own money to his campaign. He’s already in the red, however, spending more than his fundraising total — $2,011 — on his campaign website and media ads.
The candidates are preparing for the Aug. 8 primary even as Waters’ eligibility for office is being questioned. Ozawa, who previously held the District 4 seat, filed a 52-page lawsuit arguing Waters cannot run for a third term, because council members can only serve two consecutive four-year terms. Waters is disputing that because he took office after a special election in April 2019, and not in the 2018 November general election.
He is awaiting a judge’s ruling on his motion for summary judgement.
The reports below are for the six-month reporting period Jan.1 through June 30, filed on July 8.
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