Despite a concerted effort to replace Democrats, Republicans lost a net five House seats while maintaining five Senate seats.

"The two sides need to find a way of working together," McGehee said. "I think that's going to have the most significant impact on the business community."

That includes cooperation on efforts to diversify the economy and create high-paying jobs by fostering industries such as life sciences.

"We've been riding the wave of tourism and we've been doing terrific with it," McGehee said. "When times are good can we in fact be really smart about this?"

Just one day after the election, division between the two parties remained strong. Sen. Sam Slom, R-18th (Kahala, Hawai'i Kai), said key small-business issues such as tax relief and reform of high healthcare and workers' compensation costs would be set back by Democrat victories.

"There is no power to do that," said Slom, who is also president of Small Business Hawai'i. "It's going to be extremely difficult. We couldn't do it with the numbers we had. Now we have five less seats in the House."

Sen. Ron Menor, chairman of the Senate Consumer Protection Committee, said the election results illustrate public support for Democratic measures such as a gasoline price cap law scheduled to take effect next September.

"Many of the elected officials campaigned in support of the gasoline price cap law," said Menor, D-17th (Mililani, Waipi'o).

Jim Tollefson, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawai'i, was hopeful compromises could be found on workers' compensation reform and rolling back certain healthcare benefit mandates, among other things.

"The dynamics would have been changed with more Republicans elected to the Legislature, but I'm hopeful that we can continue work with the elected legislators and seek some areas of compromise," he said. "We're trying to seek common ground where we can move ahead.

"We haven't had an opportunity to meet with some of the new people in office, but we're looking forward to working with them."

Ann Chung, executive director of the Hawaii Technology Trade Association, agreed. The group's top legislative priority is the creation of a state-sponsored venture capital fund aimed at keeping needy technology and traditional businesses from migrating to the Mainland. The State Private Investment Fund was created last session, but the fund cannot invest money without additional legislative authorization.

House Majority Leader Scott Saiki, D-22nd (McCully, Pawa'a), said it was too early to discuss his party's business legislative priorities, but "as a general matter, we'll continue to do what we've done in the past and that is to ensure that legislation is fair to businesses and workers."