HILO, Hawaii (KHON2) — Incumbent Mayor Mitch Roth and new political candidate Dr. Kimo Alameda will head to the general ballot in November.
The primary mayoral race had seven candidates looking to earn the top seat in the county.
In the end, incumbent Roth came out on top with 38 percent of votes, followed by Alameda with 28 percent.
No candidate received 50 plus one percent of the vote, as a result, both Roth and Alameda will be on the general ballot in November.
“I’m super ecstatic, its super special to me and my family,” said Dr. Alameda on Sunday morning. “I woke up this morning and was like this is good, to make it to the general and have that kind of support we had last night is phenomenal and I’m super excited.”
The Hilo-native received his PhD in psychology from the University of Nebraska. He said his career has led him to this.
“I came back and provided services for the Department of Health, the Department of Education, and had leadership positions which opened up a position at the Dept. of Aging in the county, so I worked under Billy Kenoi and Harry Kim, so I understand government, I know the departments and I know what it takes to run the county.”
Mayor Roth received 4,980 more votes than Alameda.
“It’s a 10 percent difference to make up for and we’re going to have to get the vote out,” said Dr. Alameda. “We’re going to have to encourage folks to vote, we have a lot of support in our campaign, but a lot of our supporters aren’t registered to vote so our next couple months we’re going to work hard to get out the vote.”
Hawaii County had the highest voter turnout in the state for primaries at 38 percent, and voters said it was the mayoral race that brought them out to vote.
“We still have a lot of work to do and get our word out,” said Mayor Mitch Roth. “It’s about we, not me, trying to get things done around our island. Our island has been making great progress in all sorts of things, I chalk it up to our team at the county and we’re going to keep doing great things for the county.”
Roth said he’s looking forward to November, “we’re going to keep doing what we can and make sure our kids can raise their kids on Hawaii island, and their kids can raise their kids here too.”
Both said they will work hard to earn the voters who chose other candidates.