Hawaii voters statewide are getting a head-to-head look at the Maui seat on the Office of Hawaiian Affairs board, a rerun of the 2018 contest that longtime trustee Carmen Lindsey won.

• Lindsey has held the Maui seat since 2012 and spent four years as board chair, where she pushed to lift the ban on housing at Kakaako Makai.
• She is angry that state lawmakers have declined for a second year to even take up OHA's bill, saying 300,000 beneficiaries were shut out.
• Challenger Carl Kapu is a cultural practitioner whose Lahaina nonprofit burned in the 2023 West Maui wildfires; he says the county and state should have brought people together before reopening the area to tourists.
• Both want OHA to move past short-term aid toward helping Native Hawaiians actually buy homes, and both say the state still owes the trust a lot of money from public lands.
• Anyone in the state can vote in this race, not just Maui residents.

Outlook: More candidate forums follow this week for the Oahu and at-large seats, with the money the state owes OHA likely to stay the central fight.