Following are two pieces about Maui’s Green Party candidate, Pāʻele Kiakona, who not only has significant community support but the endorsement of all five of Hawaiʻi's largest labor unions – Hawaiʻi Government Employees Association (HGEA), ILWU Local 142, Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association (HSTA), United Public Workers (UPW), and UNITE HERE! Local 5.
These five organizations together represent nearly 96,000 workers across the state, marking an unprecedented level of labor support for a Green Party candidate in Hawaiʻi history.
Aloha mai kākou!
My name is Pāʻele Kiakona and I am running as a Green Party candidate for Maui House Representative, District 14 (Lahaina, Maalaea, and Waiheʻe-Waiehu).
Many of you may recognize me from being on the front lines of the recovery and rebuild of our hometown. Together, we stood up a grassroots movement, activated the community and pushed for policy change to create a more balanced, safe home. However, my advocacy work started long before, where my family has showed what it means to be responsible stewards of this place.
My ‘ohana comes from Mala Village. Grandma always shares stories from pre-commercialization, when Honoapi’ilani highway used to be bush that she’d trek through to farm taro up mauka. Our family raised sow and fished the abundance of ‘opelu right in the front yard. Back then, they understood the relationship from mountain to sea and knew that we had a crucial role to play in giving back to what nourishes us. We look back at what was to shape what can be.
Iʻm running as House Representative to continue this path that my ʻohana has paved for me. I am passionate about protecting and preserving what is left of our home, honoring the rich history of this wahi, and finding solutions so that our people continue to remain here.
My campaign is focused on three things: opportunity for our communities, living in balance with ʻāina, and accountability in leadership. That means rebuilding Lahaina safely, making sure local families can afford to live here, and protecting the land and water that sustain Maui.
For Pāʻele Kiakona, protecting water resources and the ʻāina is key.
“Environmental studies has been my major, my background,” he told Hawaiʻi Public Radio. “I grew up in the taro patch, and I’m born and raised in Lahaina. I feel like that is something that sets me apart. And I show up. I’m accountable, and I always put community first.”
He has worked as a community organizer, advocated to shift housing priorities to local ʻohana, and served on the Maui Board of Water Supply. “If you look at a lot of our issues, whether it be cost of living, whether it be resiliency, regreening Lahaina, all of these things are almost always related right back to the health of our environment.”
Kiakona believes his campaign’s momentum has been building.
“I’ve seen a lot of people in my generation get so much more involved, and a lot of them getting even more involved because they know that I’m running for office. I’ve seen people come out and sign-wave when they've never done so before. I have people, hundreds of people that I know personally that are voting for the first time because they believe in what’s happening here.”
Kiakona hopes the education and awareness he’s raised along the campaign trail will have wider-reaching impacts, regardless of next month’s results.
“Getting in is also the goal," he said. “But part of the goal was to educate community and show them I’ve been fighting every step of the way for this community. I’ve shown up to every single community meeting. We’ve had a lot of success just doing the work and not letting your typical politics get in the way of doing that work. If the community sees this person that they’ve seen for three years fight and had success take a different route and jump into a separate party of the two-party system, then at least, it is my hope.”
Kiakona doesn’t feel that the status quo has been working effectively.
“I just saw how it was very much so relationships that put people in hard situations where they may not, say, support a bill because of the relationship with the person who wrote the bill, and I just didn’t feel like that was the right way to go about it,” Kiakona said, explaining his decision to run under the Green Party, while also describing it as “a much harder route.”
District 14 includes Maʻalaea, Olowalu, Lahaina and Kaʻanapali.
– Catherine Cluett Pactolo
“Pāʻele Kiakona Is in an Unusual
3-Party Race for West Maui’s House Seat”
Hawaiʻi Public Radio
October 21, 2026
“Pāʻele Kiakona Is in an Unusual
3-Party Race for West Maui’s House Seat”
Hawaiʻi Public Radio
October 21, 2026
The following 15-minute video is from September 28, 2026, when Pāʻele Kiakona officially launched his general election campaign for Hawaiʻi State House District 14 at Hanakaʻōʻō, Canoe Beach in Lahaina. In 2023, a series of wildfires destroyed approximately 80% of Lahaina, resulting in the deaths of 102 people.
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “On to the General!”: The Green Party Candidates in Minnesota
• Campaigning With the Green Party of Minnesota
• With the Green Party at Twin Cities Pride
• MPR’s Major (But Unsurprising) Failure
• Andy Thomas Schuler: Quote of the Day – October 10, 2026
• Butch Ware on Why Third Parties Are Crucial
• Third Parties and the Historical Record
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Mickie Kato: Quote of the Day – October 21, 2026
• Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t
• “The Fascist Fist Is Tightening Because It Knows That It Is Losing Its Grasp on Us”
• Photo of the Day – March 3, 2026
• How the Green Party Gained Power in the U.K.
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Something to Think About – December 8, 2024
• Jill Stein on the Importance of the Green Party
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• Butch Ware on “Red & Blue vs Green Politics”
• Building Solidarity on the Left
• “The Moment Is Ripe”: Butch Ware on Building a “True Oppositional Alternative” to the Duopoly
• Butch Ware: “You Can Actually Vote Your Conscience”
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Politics 101
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• “Americans Deserve Choices”: Jill Stein on Breaking Points – 4/30/24
• Nick Cruse: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is the Privileged Position”
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem” (2020)
• “The Next Step Is a Green Step”: Cornel West Endorses Jill Stein (2016)
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
• Hope Over Fear: Voting Green
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