Lingle took the candidate's oath in the lieutenant governor’s office with about 75 supporters looking on. She then headed to the state Capitol courtyard to promise “a renewal for our state, a new beginning for Hawai‘i” before a crowd of about 200.

Lingle is the Republican Party front-runner. Four years ago, she fell just 5,000 votes short of upsetting incumbent Democrat Ben Cayetano. Today, she said she learned lessons from the last race and this year will be different.

“This is not going to be an easy election. It’s going to be very, very tough like the last one,” Lingle said. “But there’s going to be a major difference between that race and this race, we’re going to win this time.”

Lingle said she has continued to get to know people over the last four years and feels “they’re ready for a change.”

She said she will make education a priority. She said she will work toward having the Legislature pass a law that requires school budgets to have “a high percentage be used in the classroom.”

One of the mistakes she felt that she made last time was agreeing to voluntary campaign spending limits, which left her outspent in the waning days before the election. “We’ll work hard up until the last second,” she said.

Other candidates for governor are Republican John Carroll and Democrats D.G. “Andy” Anderson, Ed Case and Jeremy Harris.