MAYORAL RACE: Su Chiao-hui made gains by persuading undecided voters and winning over voters in KMT-leaning districts, a pollster said
By Chen Yu-fu and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer
Legislator Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate for New Taipei City mayor, has a 13.1 percentage point lead over her Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rival Lee Shu-chuan (李四川), a poll released yesterday showed.
The poll, commissioned by the Taipei Trust in Democracy Association, showed that 43.1 percent of respondents said they would vote for Su, up 7.9 percentage points from a poll conducted in late August, while support for Lee was at 30 percent, down 4.7 percentage points.
It showed that 48.6 percent of respondents thought Su would make a suitable mayor, compared with 35.9 percent for Lee.
Lee Shu-chuan, center, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) New Taipei City mayoral candidate, attends a campaign event at Baoan Market in Shulin District yesterday.
Photo courtesy of Lee’s campaign office via CNA
Independent candidate Su Hui-huang (蘇輝湟) received 1.5 percent support, 9.5 percent said they would not vote or would cast an invalid ballot and 15.8 percent were undecided, the poll showed.
Su Chiao-hui’s gains came from persuading undecided voters, as well as winning over some voters in traditionally KMT-leaning districts, said Tai Li-an (戴立安), who designed and analyzed the survey.
Her support among women rose by 11 percentage points, Tai said.
A person holds a Democratic Progressive Party poster at a rally for New Taipei City mayoral candidate Su Chiao-hui and Taipei mayoral candidate Puma Shen in New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District on Friday last week.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
The share of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) supporters who considered Su Chiao-hui suitable for mayor rose by 14.2 percentage points compared with August, while the share who considered her unsuitable increased by 4.6 percentage points, he said.
Many polling organizations do not release results showing wide discrepancies for fear of prompting rival camps to respond in ways that could affect the election, Tai said.
Political parties would continue to portray the race as close until voting day, he said, adding that KMT and TPP supporters might be less willing to disclose their preferences after seeing the poll results.
Asked about the poll on a talk show, Su Chiao-hui said she was surprised by the results, but would remain vigilant.
The rise in support might reflect positive public reactions to her interactions with Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋), the DPP’s Taipei mayoral candidate, she said.
Asked about Lee’s declining support and whether his age was a factor, she said that a candidate’s age should not be equated with an inability to implement policies.
Voters would support candidates whose attitudes and views keep pace with the times, she said.
Lee’s campaign office disputed the poll results, saying its findings did not reflect reality.
The DPP and KMT received similar shares of the party-list vote in the 2024 legislative elections, but DPP supporters outnumbered KMT supporters among the poll’s respondents by about 1.6 to one, the office said, adding that the survey’s sample was unrepresentative.
A TVBS poll commissioned by the New Taipei City Council’s KMT caucus showed Lee leading Su by 6.7 percentage points, it said, adding that Lee would continue to visit New Taipei City residents in all 29 districts to hear their concerns.
The poll interviewed 1,073 New Taipei City residents aged 20 or older from Tuesday to Thursday last week, with 750 interviewed by landline and 323 by cellphone. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.
Additional reporting by Huang Tzu-yang and Weng Lu-huang