“In the campaign for elective office, we seek support from many, and we get support from many and some choose to support others, and so that’s just the nature of elective office,” Ige said Thursday in a wide-ranging phone interview with The Maui News.

On March 27 at the opening of Hanabusa’s Maui headquarters, Tsutsui announced his support for the congresswoman.

“I believe in Colleen’s leadership,” Tsutsui told the crowd at the Kahului Shopping Center. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with Colleen and David side by side for a number of years, and I really am convinced that Colleen is the right person and this is the right time.”

Tsutsui, a Maui High graduate, rose to the second-highest post in the state in the wake of the death of U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye on Dec. 17, 2012. Then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie convinced Tsutsui, who was first in line of succession as state Senate president, to become lieutenant governor.

David Ige

Tsutsui won the post outright in the 2014 election, winning a primary and running with Ige, who had defeated Abercrombie in the primary. He resigned the post in January to join Seattle-based Strategies 360, a public affairs, communications and research firm, to be closer to his family on Maui.

Tsutsui had been sidelined on many issues, including those involving Maui County, such as the privatization of Maui Memorial Medical Center, during the Ige years. While never directly criticizing Ige, Tsutsui has said the governor and he had different leadership styles.

Ige, too, did not criticize Tsutsui.

“In working with Shan, I did ask which issues and which projects he would like to work on,” Ige said. “I approved virtually every request that he made . . . of things that he wanted to get involved with.”

The Aloha Stadium renovation and farm-to-school program to bring more locally produced food into the public schools were among the things Tsutsui asked to get involved with, he said.

“I said certainly and he’s made progress” with Aloha Stadium and “did a terrific job” with the farm-to-school program, Ige said.

It’s been a tough several weeks for Ige with the Tsutsui endorsement of Hanabusa and reports of key lawmakers in the Legislature signing on to a fundraising letter for her. A Honolulu Star-Advertiser poll published late last month showed Ige trailing Hanabusa by 20 percentage points as he seeks a second four-year term.

“We certainly believe and I know that we will be able to make up that deficit,” Ige said. “We have a good plan in place and are executing it. I feel good about where our campaign is. We have a very strong grassroots effort all across the state.”

He is holding coffee hours and meeting the voters. “We continue to get people to join the campaign every day, and we believe as we implement these various components of the campaign that we will be successful.”

Fundraising is going well, Ige said, noting that through December he had raised more money than Hanabusa, $810,000 to $731,000.

“I do believe when we approach Election Day I will be proud to put my record, all the things I have done on behalf of Maui County, before the people of Maui, ask them to judge on my leadership and performance to directly improve the lives of the people of Maui County,” Ige said.

At the top of the Maui County list of accomplishments, Ige took credit for getting over the finish line the transfer of operational control of county public hospitals to the private Maui Health System, a Kaiser Permanente subsidiary. Last July 1, Maui Health System took over Maui Memorial Medical Center, Kula Hospital and Lanai Community Hospital from the quasi-public Hawaii Health Systems Corp. Maui Region.

The move to a private hospital operator to reduce costs and to maintain the level care “is something that has been talked about . . . on Maui for more than a decade,” Ige said. “And they were unable to do it until I became governor. Obviously, that’s working with many in the community that wanted to see it through, but after talking about wanting to do it for many years we actually got it done.

“It is the mostly complex transaction in the history of the state of Hawaii.”

Maui Health System’s operation of the hospitals “over the long haul will certainly improve access to quality health care services on Maui.”

The transition has not gone perfectly, though he considered the issues more kinks than “major problems.” The hospitals have lost doctors and professionals, but Maui Health System is committed to replacing them, Ige said.

“I do think some of those transition issues are normal issues,” he said. “Kaiser is committed to maintaining the services that they have (at the hospitals.)”

Ige mentioned that he hoped Maui Health System would negotiate a fair contract with the unions representing former public hospital workers.

“I do agree that I haven’t spent as much time making a splash or claiming credit for the things we have done,” Ige said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that they got done. These are real accomplishments.”

His leadership style contrasts with his more forceful, sometimes combative, and colorful predecessor, Abercrombie.

“My leadership style is I am a collaborator. I look for the best ideas. I don’t take ownership,” Ige said. “I don’t believe that I am the only one that has ideas, but we look for the best ideas that solves the problem and allows us to improve the quality of life of the people in that community.”

“It’s easy for people to criticize things, and they’ve never had the responsibility of being the chief executive,” Ige continued. “The buck stops with me, and I love this job because it gives me the opportunity to make a difference for the people in Maui every single day.”

* Managing Editor Lee Imada can be reached a leeimada@mauinews.com.