John Hurtado, who says the nonpartisan campaign hasn't piqued his interest so far, says he doesn't know much about any of the three candidates - Peter Carlisle, Randal Yoshida and David Arakawa.
The three are among the 43 percent of voters in the latest Honolulu Star-Bulletin Poll who were are undecided about whom to vote for in the prosecutor's race.
If the Sept. 21 election were held today, 25 percent of those polled would vote for Carlisle, while 19 percent would go for Yoshida and 14 percent for Arakawa.
"It's good for us considering we started late," Arakawa said. "Randy has been running for the last four years so I think it shows that even with that, a lot of people are still not convinced."
All three candidates plan to step up their campaigns in the next few weeks with radio/TV spots and printed advertisements.
"I want someone who has good judgment because it's easy to throw the book at everyone and not hit anyone," said Taylor, a corporate attorney and Kaneohe resident. "So you've got to select targets carefully as a prosecutor.
"I feel strongly about domestic violence so I would listen carefully to a candidate who says it's his No. 1 priority," he added. "If you can't be safe at home, you're in trouble because that's where you should feel the safest."
Some other undecided respondents favor a hardliner.
"It's getting better but it's been soft for too long," said Mathewson, a Kaimuki resident and co-owner of a commercial arts business. "There's too much plea bargaining.
"I want a tough guy, one willing to crack down on crime who is not part of any (political) machine," she added. "(Former prosecutor Charles) Marsland was good. He wasn't scared of anybody."
The undecided numbers are not unexpected, candidates say, but they agree it may be difficult to swing enough votes in the next seven weeks to have a clear-cut winner on Sept. 21.
It will take 50 percent plus 1 vote to win the prosecutor's race outright. If not, the top two vote-getters will advance to a runoff election in November.
"Our game plan going in was to finish in the top two and force a runoff," Carlisle said, noting the difficulty of getting 50 plus 1 in a three-man race.
The Star-Bulletin poll was based on responses from 482 Oahu voters polled from July 11-15. The poll was done through telephone interviews by Mason-Dixon Political/
Media Research Inc. of Columbia, Md.; margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
A Star-Bulletin computer analysis of poll data indicates that ethnicity is a factor. Carlisle was a popular choice among Caucasian respondents with Yoshida a distant second.
Arakawa, however, is the favorite among Japanese-American voters with Yoshida second. Arakawa was a strong choice of respondents with annual incomes of less than $25,000 a year but was a distant third choice of those earning between $40,000 and $69,999.
The higher middle and upper income groups both favored Carlisle, but Yoshida is a closer second among voters earning $70,000 or more.
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