2018 ROC local elections Nov 24

[jaichind]

DPP finally beginning to fall apart in Kaoshiung City (高雄市) (PVI Green +7).  It is now 52.8 DPP 45.8

[jaichind]

This election seems to be the return of the KMT local factions.  The places where KMT over-performed: Taichung City(臺中市)  (PVI Blue +0), Yilan County(宜蘭縣)  (PVI Green +6), Changhua County(彰化縣) (PVI Green +1), Yunlin County(雲林縣) (PVI Green +8), Kaoshiung City (高雄市) (PVI Green +7)  etc etc all have historically strong KMT local factions.  They drifted away from the KMT for elections outside of local government after Ma tried to cut them off.  Now they see the peril of the DPP onslaught  and swung back beyond the KMT candidates.

[jaichind]

Jaiyi County(嘉義縣) (PVI Green +10) it is DPP 51.6 KMT 29.6 DPP rebel 16.1.  It was said that the local KMT Yellow factions was going to back the DPP rebel as the KMT candidate was an outsider.  It seems that played out.  DPP did a good job of keeping its base together. 

[jaichind]

Only two races in doubt now:

Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) Ko 41.2 KMT 41.1 DPP 16.9
Jiayi City(嘉義市) (PVI Green +3)  KMT 41.0 DPP 39.7 KMT rebel 18.0

[jaichind]

In Hsinchu County (新竹縣) (PVI Blue +14) it is KMT 38.5 MKT 31.7 DPP 27.9.  Reading the various political analysts I was one of the few people that go the dynamics of this race correctly. I projected that the Han surge and DPP counterattack would polarize the Blue-Green cleavage which would shift votes from Light Green votes from MKT to DPP giving the KMT a victory even though most polls had it neck-to-neck.   

[jaichind]

Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) KMT takes the lead KMT 41.2 Ko 41.1 DPP 16.9.  If KMT wins then this is the worst outcome for DPP Prez Tsai. She launch a strike to take out Ko with the hope he loses by a large margin and be out of politics.  If he loses narrowly then Ko and all his mostly pro-Green supporters will be out for revenge.  Even if Ko does not run in 2020 Ko's supporters might not turn out in 2020 or even vote KMT.

[jaichind]

I watched the rabidly pro-Deep Green SET live stream the entire time. It was fun watching the epic meltdown.  It ranks out there with Young Turks on 2016 US election night.

[jaichind]

Kaoshiung City (高雄市) (PVI Green +7) is now 52.9 DPP 45.7.  DPP's Chen has conceded. 

[jaichind]

If KMT ends up winning Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) then I would have called every raae correctly except for Yunlin County(雲林縣) (PVI Green +8) correctly.  Even there I correctly felt that it would be close.  In the end KMT won Yunlin County(雲林縣) (PVI Green +8) in a landslide KMT 54.0 DPP 41.6 DPP rebel 2.8.

[jaichind]

DPP Prez Tsai resigns as Chairperson of DPP.

[jaichind]

Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) Ko retakes the lead Ko 41.1 KMT 41.0 DPP 17.1

Based on outstanding votes I project Ko wins Ko 41.1 KMT 40.7 DPP 17.5

[jaichind]

Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) now at Ko 41.1 KMT 40.8 DPP 17.2

Based on outstanding votes I project Ko wins Ko 41.1 KMT 40.7 DPP 17.4

It is now comes down to pro-KMT 大安區(Da'an District) and pro-Ko 士林區(Shilin District). Fun fact.  I was born in 大安區(Da'an District) and grew up in 士林區(Shilin District).

[jaichind]

Jiayi City(嘉義市) (PVI Green +3) call for KMT.  KMT 41.1 DPP 39.6 KMT rebel 18.0.  Fits my narrative that in ROC elections rebels tends not to hurt the challenging party to lose a seat they should have won but will hurt the ruling party to lose a seat they should have won without the rebel.

[jaichind]

Referendum mostly done.  The goal is to get backing of 25% of the voting population.

The 2 KMT backed initiatives against coal power are ahead 39.7% and 37.8% respectively.  The KMT backed initiative against Japanese products from 2011 nuclear diaster areas are ahead with 38.6%.
The 3 anti-gay marriage and gay sex education initiatives ahead 38.8% 35.8% 32.1% respectively.

The Pan-Green backed using Taiwan to enter Olympics at the edge of winning at 24.6%

The 2 pro-gay marriage and gay sex education got crushed at 16.8 and 175% respectively.

The KMT backed pro-nuclear power initiative ahead at 29.6% 

[jaichind]

Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) KMT back in the lead KMT 41.1 Ko 41.0  DPP 17.1

Based on outstanding votes I project Ko wins Ko 41.0 KMT 40.8 DPP 17.3.  I suspect this is headed toward recount.

[jaichind]

With almost all the votes in Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) its at Ko 41.08% KMT 40.78% DPP 17.30%.

Based on what is left the final result is projected to be Ko 41.05% KMT 40.82% DPP 17.29%

With the threshold to recount as 0.3% this is headed to recount although chances are very low for KMT's Ding to make up the difference.

[jaichind]

 Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) done.  Ko 41.05 KMT 40.82 DPP 17.29.  This is headed toward recount 

KMT's Ding will most likely sue to claim a flawed election.  Because of the unrepresented nature of an election with 10 referendum items  the voting time was much longer and there were massive lives across the board including  Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6).  The law is that as long as the voter was in line to vote by the 4PM deadline he or she could vote. In  Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) the lines were so long that some voters did not vote until 7pm or even 8pm.  But the rules also said counting could begin at 4pm.  So we had the situation in  Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) where a large amount of voters were voting AFTER a good chunk of the results were being declared.  In a 3 way race this is very problematic and the basis of KMT Ding's likely lawsuit to rule the election null and void  It is clear if Ko lost or lost the recount he would do the same.  This is a complete mess there are already conspiracy theories in both Ko and Deep Blue camps about this was the doing of the DPP. . 

[jaichind]

Referendum result (For Yes to pass it has to win AND cross 25% of voting population)

1) Reduce coal power (really a KMT push toward nuclear power): Yes won 79.0%  and since Yes was 40.3% of the voting population this passes.

2) Block construction of new coal plants (really a KMT push for nuclear power): Yes won 76.4% and since Yes was 38.5% of the voting population this passes

3) Ban food products from areas of Japan affected by the 2011 nuclear disaster (really a KMT push to wreck DPP relationship with Japan): Yes won 77.7% since Yes was 39.4% of the voting population this passes

4) Marriage law should state that marriage is between a Man and a Women (coalition of religious conservatives with tacit support of KMT): Yes won 72.5% and since Yes was 38.8% of voting population this passes

5) LGBT topics should not appear in sex education classes (coalition of religious conservatives with tactic support of KMT): Yes won 67.4% and since Yes was 35.9% of voting population it passes

6) If gay partnerships has to be protected by law then let there be a separate law outside the Marriage Law to allowed for this (coalition of religious conservatives wanting to create a "Separate and Unequal"  law for gay marriage): Yes won 61.1% and since Yes was 32.4% of voting population this passes

7) Let toe ROC Olympic team be named "Taiwan" vs "Chinese Taeipei" (pushed by Pan-Green activists as a proxy vote for Taiwan Independence): Yes won 45.2% and is defeated.

Let the marriage law be changed to allow for Gay marriage (pushed by LGBT activists): Yes won 32.7% and is defeated.

9) Let LGBT lifestyles be part of school sex ed classes (pushed by LGBT activists): Yes won 34.0% and is defeated.

10) Allow for greater growth of nuclear power as a part of a transition to green energy (pushed by nuclear power camp with tacit support by KMT): Yes won 59.5% and  since Yes was 29.4% of the voting population this passes.


Main takeaways:
1) Everything the KMT is for explicitly or tacitly passed and everything the KMT is opposed explicitly or tactility was defeated.
2) We had the first every de facto proxy vote for Taiwan Independence and it went down to defeat even though it was worded and structured in the most "safe" way.  Long Live ROC !! Long Live Chinese Reunification !! 
3) The anti-gay marriage grand coalition was awesome to behold.  It included various Buddhist, Taoist, Chinese traditionalist, Catholic, Presbyterian and Islamic and cross both Blue and Green political coalitions.    It was a massive gang up of everyone vs urban middle class progressives and the progressives got smashed. A great example of how to form a grand coalition.

[jaichind]

Looking down ballot at the city and county assembly elections it seems that the DPP did not do that badly in urban areas.  It was expected that in urban areas the DPP would do poorly due to the swing against the DPP plus NPP running to split the DPP vote.  It turned out that why the defeats were bad they were not much worse what was feared by the DPP.  It was in rural areas where the DPP did not expect a large swing that the DPP crackup took place.  Part of it was the DPP was ambushed since they over-nominated candidates but part of it was just a large swing of vote against DPP in rural areas.

If you look at the mayoral and county magistrate elections the KMT clearly over-performed in rural areas aside from a couple of places where the local KMT faction decided to back DPP rebels and performed "Meh" in urban areas.  I think this is part of a greater trend away from what I call "Party System of 2000"

In the 1980s and 1990s the KMT was strong in rural areas and DPP stronger with urban middle class.  The rise of PRC low tech industry posed a threat ROC rural industry while urban ROC saw that its high tech service oriented economy could be a strong partner with PRC.  As a result in the 1990s there was a realignment with urban areas drifting KMT and rural areas drifting DPP culminating in the election of 2000 where was was cemented.   In 2008 with KMT's Ma coming to power he accelerated this trend by trying to turn the KMT into a pure urban middle class liberal party by throwing aside the rural KMT local factions.  During this period PRC's economy moved quickly upstream and became a competitive threat to the ROC urban economic sectors as well.  After 2012 DPP's Tsai was able to capture urban progress youth  and bank the DPP gains in rural areas to gain smashing victories in 2014 and 2016.  But now post 2016 with Ma out of the way and fall of agriculture prices meaning the PRC market for ROC agriculture product more decisive the rural vote is shifting back toward the KMT.  Another key factor is the gay marriage topic which drove a wedge between the DPP rural base and its new urban progressive supporters. It seems the "Party System of 2000" is slowing being reversed. 

[jaichind]

Mayor and County magistrate election results


Mayor and County magistrate election results at the township level


Change from 2014

[jaichind]

The Changhua County(彰化縣) (PVI Green +1) first district results is an extreme example of the DPP meltdown in rural county assembly elections as a part of a swing AND over-nomination.    22 candidates fighting for 13 spots

Ind(KMT)     15.1% elected
KMT            12.9% elected
KMT            10.1% elected
DPP              8.7% elected
KMT             8.0% elected
KMT             8.0% elected
NPP              6.7% elected
KMT             5.9% elected
Ind(KMT)      5.8% elected
DPP rebel      5.6% elected
DPP              5.3% elected
Ind(KMT)      5.1% elected
Ind(KMT)      4.7% elected
DPP rebel      4.4%
DPP              4.2%
DPP              3.8%
DPP              3.8%
DPP              3.3%
Ind(TSU)       2.3%

[jaichind]

I think going forward DPP will need to renew its alliance with Ko to stop KMT in 2020.  Not sure Ko's supporters would be ok with this. 

[jaichind]

ROC cabinet begins process to pass a gay marriage law as per Supreme Court ruling last year.  Not clear will it be to amend the Marriage Law or a "separate and unequal" law that the referendum clearly indicated.  One way or another the DPP will be trapped between its Northern progressive wing and its Southern conservative base.

[jaichind]

The election night was a disaster for the ROC election comission especially in  Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6)  where KMT's Ding narrowly lost to Ko.  It seems that there were massive delays and lines in voting especially in  Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6)  where voters were voting up until 7pm even though polls closed at 4pm and counting started. 

Turnout in  Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) ended up being 65% vs 70% back in 2014 even though turnout in  Kaoshiung City (高雄市) (PVI Green +7) surged.  It is clear that turnout was suppressed by the long lines.  The Ding camp claims foul that the long lines deterred their elderly  base from psychically being in a line for 3-4 hours.  The Ko camp claims that its youth base lack patience and did not turn out.  Of course the worst is possible and likely  DPP Yao->Ko tactical voting by DPP voters as they watched the election returns on their mobile phones at 5pm 6pm or even 7pm which showed Yao way behind.  The ballot boxes which were counted the latest clearly had Yao with lower level of support even though the Ko camp could also claim that some of them were Yao->Ding tactical voting.

All this is made worse by the facts that: Most media outfits make up vote totals from 4pm-7pm in their broadcast.  You heard it right.  Most of the vote count numbers are mostly made up based on very low level of sample counts from key precincts.   This history of why this is the case stem from an earlier era in the 1980s and early 1990s when the KMT had a huge party worker organization which fed live count numbers to KMT headquarters which is a lot further ahead than the official election commission numbers.   The KMT then feed these numbers to KMT owned CTV which had a huge edge in TV viewership election night.  Rival TV channels to compete pretty much took what they saw on CTV and added numbers on top of that to fit their own gut feeling on how the race will go and as the election commission numbers caught up converged their guesses to the official numbers by around 7pm-8pm.  These TV channels also bias their "projected" votes to fit the needs of their viewers.  Pro-Green TV channels would push up the DPP vote total during the 4pm-7pm period to keep their Green supporters engaged a eyeballs on their channel.  Same with pr-Blue TV channels.  In 2004 in fact there was a fiasco where many channels had their numbers overrun to final vote count and had to have their vote count GO DOWN.

So we have the issue of voters being influenced by real vote count totals which are not even the real vote counts but what the said TV channel THINKS the vote count should be during the 4pm-7pm period.
 

[jaichind]

Depite talk of a massive KMT victory in the 2018 local elections the Pan-Blue vs Pan-Green vote share victory was much more muted.  I did my Blue vs Green vote share count and came up with (I also have the numbers for the 1993/4 1997/8 2001/2 2005/6 2009/10 2014 number as well)

                   Blues        Greens
1993/4       55.94%      43.72%
1997/8       52.32%      47.13% (deceptive, massive number of KMT rebels in a DPP landslide year)
2001/2       52.87%      46.74%
2005/6       54.83%      44.56%
2009/10     51.23%      48.60%
2014          42.91%      56.47%
2018          51.77%      47.57%

You can argue that the Pan-Green vote share of 47.57% is deceptive since Pan-Green rebels in  Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6), Jaiyi County(嘉義縣) (PVI Green +10), and Hsinchu City(新竹市) (PVI Blue +5) over-performed and clearly pulled in Pan-Blue votes.  On the other hand KMT rebels in Yilan County(宜蘭縣)  (PVI Green +6), Hsinchu County (新竹縣) (PVI Blue +14), Penghu County(澎湖縣) (PVI Blue +4) over-performed and clearly pulled in Pan-Green votes.  It is true that in absolute terms  the impact of Ko in Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) is much larger.

It is true that KMT reached unprecedented levels of support in Kaoshiung City (高雄市) (PVI Green +7) but the results for the KMT in Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6) is very problematic as this is the second election in the role that the Pan-Blue camp was reduced to the low 40s in terms of vote share.  Ko is eroding the once massive Pan-Blue lead in Taipei City (臺北市) (PVI Blue +6).   Also Pan-Greens reached unprecedented levels of support in Taoyuan City (桃園市) (PVI Blue +5) and nearly matched their unprecedented levels of support in Keelong City (基隆市) (PVI Blue +8).

All things equal the Pan-Blue/KMT performance looks more like 2001/2 and 2009/2010 than its 2005/6 landslide victory.  The shock of DPP loses in Kaoshiung City (高雄市) (PVI Green +7) tends to take attention away from true DPP over-performance in Taoyuan City (桃園市) (PVI Blue +5) and Keelong City (基隆市) (PVI Blue +8).

To some extent the large number of Pan-Green rebels in Tainan City (臺南市) (PVI Green +11) actually prevented a larger KMT surge there, It is clear that the DPP is wearing out its welcome in Tainan City (臺南市) (PVI Green +11) but did not trust KMT yet.  The Pan-Green rebel over-performance in Tainan City (臺南市) (PVI Green +11) were clearly a way to show that desire.