Case in particular is in an incredibly safe district that votes in progressives for other offices, but after winning his initial primary with a plurality he hasn’t had a real challenger despite being a quisling centrist doing performative party-bucking the whole time. Hawaii’s political landscape is just incredibly steeped in backroom politics and an aversion to risk. Case himself was in Congress previously and basically killed his career for a decade by challenging a senator before it was his turn.

One of the big names in state politics just lost to an upstart though, so maybe the cracks are growing.