The person most hurt by Mufi Hannemann‘s negative ads was his former aide, Kirk Caldwell, an analysis of a Civil Beat poll has found.

A Civil Beat poll conducted 10 days before the primary election found that Caldwell did best among liberals and Democrats, a winning formula for a low to moderate turnout primary.

Caldwell definitely picked up steam as the campaign went along and came much closer than anyone might have anticipated in August, when a Honolulu Star-Advertiser poll had him trailing Peter Carlisle badly.

But the analysis of the Civil Beat poll after the primary found that there was one significant block of liberal/Democratic voters Caldwell tanked with — the supporters of Neil Abercrombie who identified Hannemann’s negative campaigning as the most important issue in the governor’s race. Fully 18.1 percent of the 769 likely primary voters surveyed on Oahu called Hannemann’s negative tactics the No. 1 issue.

And among those voters, the picture was bleak for Caldwell. Of those voters, 47 percent opted for Carlisle, 17 percent for Caldwell and 32 percent for Panos Prevedouros, the third-place finisher in the mayoral race.

“They were pretty Democratic people who were so turned off by Hannemann that they took it out on Caldwell,” said Matt Fitch, executive director of Merriman River Group, which conducted the poll for Civil Beat through its Hawaii subsidiary, Aloha Vote.

“That isn’t to say that Caldwell would have won,” Fitch said. “But that hurt him badly.”

Among the 630 who chose a different most important issue, the race was a flat-out tie, according to the analysis of the poll, Fitch said. Of those voters, 35 percent picked Carlisle, 35 percent picked Caldwell and 17 percent picked Prevedouros.

The caveat is that 139 people is a small sample, said Seth Rosenthal, director of polling for Merriman River Group. “It’s a trend,” he said. “It suggests something for candidates to look out for in the future — the unintended consequences of their campaigns if there are other people running for office linked to them or tied to them.

The analysis of the poll results following the election also showed that the proposed $5.5 billion rail project is the most important issue for about 12 percent of the electorate.

Fitch said that while the number doesn’t seem big, it’s bigger than the Tea Party.

Prevedouros, the anti-rail candidate, took votes from Carlisle more than he did from Caldwell. “His votes were Republican votes,” said Fitch. (Prevedouros had been endorsed as the Republican candidate in the nonpartisan race.)

It was in part Prevedouros’ presence in the race, making it a three-person contest, that gave Caldwell the chance to win. Without his presence, the poll indicates Carlisle would have had a much bigger advantage.

“Caldwell had a window in a three-way race that was perhaps closed to him by the blowback from the negative ads,” Fitch said.