ROC President and Legislative elections Jan 11 2020

[jaichind]

A key technicality of the DPP primary polls.  The winner is the candidate that has the ABSOLUTE highest level of support and NOT the RELATIVE highest level of support in a 3 way race.    Meaning if the polling average of the different pollsters came out with

KMT Han 44
DPP Tsai  30
Ko          18

KMT Han 36
DPP Lai   29
Ko          27

Tsai wins the primary since her level of support is higher. The fact she is blown out by Han by 14% while Lai is within 7% of Han is irrelevant.  In many ways this is why Tsai wanted the primary poll to be 3 way.  A lot of anti-Tsai ex-DPP supporter would back Ko is one reason.  But the core DPP vote might back Tsai in the poll but back Ko when Lai is the poll because of fear.  Fear that if Tsai loses she night blot from the DPP and run as an independent and destroy the DPP down-ballot.  The core DPP voter cannot in good conscious tell a pollster that they back Han but can tell the pollster that they back Ko over Lai but back Tsai over Ko.  This is the main reason that xfutures trading market have odds at Tsai 51 Lai 49 I think Tsai is a lock to win the DPP primary.  It is a very flawed primary but she will win.   

[jaichind]

How awful is it for the DPP ? Assuming Tsai wins reelection in 2020, can the DPP rebound in the 2022 Midterms ?

It was not that bad in terms of vote share for pan-Blue camp was not that high but losing Kaohsiung and Yilan which are core DPP cities/county gave the perception that it was a DPP disaster even though popular DPP incumbents won on cross-partisan appeal to over-perform in KMT core cities/counties like Keelung, Hsinchu City, and Taoyuan City.  Also DPP came in a humiliating 3rd place in Taipei City.  If the KMT wins in 2020 I expected a solid rebound for the DPP in the 2022 local elections.

[jaichind]

KMT's Wang drops out.  There are talks that he might run as an independent in the general election but more likely he will ally with Han or Guo and more likely than not it will be Han.   

The reason why that is is in the KMT there are two main factions/swim lanes.  There is the urban middle class lane (which is Guo and Chu) and there are the rural KMT faction lane (which is Han and Wang.)    KMT ex-Prez Ma was clearly the leader of the urban middle class faction while KMT ex-Speaker Wang for years been the leader of the rural KMT faction lane.    Ma clearly is backing Guo so most likely Wang will end up backing Han.

Likewise in the DPP there are two swim lanes, the urban liberal progressive bloc and the rural social conservative bloc.  In this DPP primary Tsai is the urban liberal progressive leader while Lai represents the rural social conservative.  So we can construct this chart 

            DPP     KMT
Urban   Tsai      Guo
Rural     Lai       Han

So from this one can easily see why Tsai want the DPP poll to be heavy in terms of cell phone content and Lai is opposed.  In the KMT primary discussion Guo is for a heavy weight in terms of cell phone content and Han is opposed.

Ko himself have most urban appeal so if it ends up being DPP Tsai vs KMT Guo vs Ko it would be interesting to see how the rural vote would swing.  If it is DPP Tsai vs KMT Han vs Ko Han would do relativity well in rural and suburban areas especially in lean KMT counties.

[jaichind]

DPP primary debate just ended.  Not much took place.  Both Lai tried to tone down his pro-Taiwan Independence stance. Tsai sidestepped and pretty much refused to endorse Lai if Lai won the DPP primary keeping her implicit threat of running as an independent if loses the DPP primary (a la Trump in the 2016 GOP primaries)

If you look at the various Youtube live streams of the debate and count the number of views/likes/dislikes you get

                          Views    Likes   Dislikes
CTV                     44,564   799     215 -> Gov owned, pro-DPP these days
SNTV                    2,606     84       61 -> Deep Green - South Rural
Liberty Times       29,438   462     144 -> Pro-DPP - North Urban
TVBS                   12,630    95     334  -> Pro-KMT
USTV                     8,585   68      163 -> Lean KMT
UDN                    10,379    73      213 -> Pro-KMT
TTV                     37,523  139      843 -> Lean KMT - fairly urban
NOW                   14,043  119      156 -> Lean KMT
NextTV                 8,885   109       96 -> No clear lean
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        168,653  1,948  2,225

SNTV has a much higher viewership than these numbers implies.  People that watch SNTV are South DPP core elderly Bubba and Billy Bob social conservatives.  Lets say they tend not to use youtube.

[jaichind]

In your take, do you think Tsai won the debate ?

Yes in the sense that Lai did not land a knockout blow.  I think Tsai should try to close in on a significant victory over Lai in the DPP primary that can give her some momentum in the general election. 

Xfutures odd still pretty tight though at Tsai 53 Lai 47 for DPP nomination.   I guess political futures trading market does not agree with pundit consensus that Tsai has it in the bag.

[jaichind]

As I feared, Tsai beats Lai by a wide margin



The average of 5 polls (all pro-DPP pollsters) are

DPP Tsai 35.7 KMT Han 24.5 Ko 22.7
DPP Lai 27.5 Ko 27.4 KMT Han 23.5

Tsai wins by a 8 point margin.

The poll result in absolute terms is not a concern for the KMT.  In 2016 a similar KMT primary poll had the KMT candidate in the leader over Tsai but lost in 2016 in a landslide.  In a 2012 Tsai vs Su DPP primary had the DPP candidates with double digit leads over KMT's Ma but Tsai lost in 2012 by over 6%.

But the large Tsai leader over Lai does show her strength with the youth vote.  If the KMT does not get its act together and united behind Han or Guo (I still prefer Guo) then the election in 2020 might move back to even odds versus the DPP with a disadvantage. 

[jaichind]

Looking at the DPP primary poll crosstabs confirmed Tsai won the way I though she would.  She over-performed on the youth vote (ergo the need to make sure the call phone were weighted 50%) and with women that are turned off by the rural social conservative but pro-Independence backers of Lai.  On the other hand some of the core DPP supporters in the rural South that would back Lai defected to Tsai for fear that a defeated Tsai would run as an independent and destroy the DPP in 2020.     

[jaichind]

Ex DPP Prez Chen who out on "medical parole" had implicitly backed Lai because Lai was running on a platform of granting Chen a Prez pardon is fumed at these results.  He indicated that he refused to believe these polls that had Tsai ahead of Han and Ko by over 10%.  He indicated that these poll must be trumped up.

My response is that Chen must have heard of the Observer effect in physics.  There are plenty of precedents for this.    I mentioned this before but in the 2012 DPP Primary where it was Tsai vs Su the DPP primary polling result were DPP Tsai 42.5 Ma 35.0 and DPP Su 41.2 Ma 33.8 (here is an example where Su beat Ma by more than Tsai did but Tsai wins the primary since her absolute level of support is higher).  The 2012 Prez race ended up being Ma 51.6 Tsai 45.6.  In 2016 KMT primary KMT's Hong was slightly ahead of DPP's Tasi 41 vs 40 but then fell so far behind the polls against Tsai that we was replaced by Chu who lost to Tsai 56.1 vs 31.0.

The basic idea is that since all the people polled KNEW that a primary is going on so they answers are not who they really support but reflect their relative preference for the candidates in contention.  So pre-primary polls had Tsai and Lai in third place against Han and Ko but in this DPP primary poll both beat Han and Ko handily.  This is more about pro-KMT and pro-Ko voters defecting to Tsai or Lai to reflect their relative preference between the two since that was what at stake anyway.

So Chen did not get what he wanted but he has no case to say that this primary was rigged at the polling collection level. It might have been unfair to Lai to have it delayed and have the rules of the poll changed after the process started but there is no data to show that the polling itself is rigged or fraudulent.

[jaichind]

Do you think that what is happening in Hong Kong right now could affect the KMTs chances of winning?

Absolutely.  This will add to the DPP narrative of "voting to stop the PRC from turning Taiwan into another HK"  The HK events are just what Tsai needs to turn out her youth base that gave her the 2016 landslide in the first place.  The good news for the KMT is that most likely these protests will die down over the next few months and will not be in the news in early 2020. 

Back in 2008 right before the Prez election there was a PRC crackdown of various Tibet protests which ate up the news headlines right before the election and most likely made a KMT 61 to 39 landslide into a KMT 59 to 41 landslide.  But in a close election this will make a difference.

[jaichind]

In the end Lai lost because he was not as ruthless as Tsai.  He broke the Machiavelli rule that you rather be feared than loved.  By saying he will act to protect the party above all else and Tsai refusing to make that pledge he doomed himself.  There is also a Chinese saying that a leader cannot have "婦人之仁" or "Petty kindness of a women" which is pretty much the Machiavelli rule.  In the end it was the female candidate that had the ruthless drive to win the male candidate that dithered and failed to show the ruthless drive to win.  I am getting concerned about KMT chances in 2020.  At this stage I will accept a Tsai re-election as long as the KMT can recapture a legislative majority. 

[jaichind]

In light of the Hong Kong protests, sounds like Tsai will win another 4 years as President, but could we see the KMT taking back the Legislative Yuan ?

Well, it is not clear that the HK issue will be still in the news early 2020 but for sure it helps the DPP to help turn out it base.  The HK protest actually hurts Ko the most since he appeals to the urban youth but also positions himself as being very pragmatic with PRC and he could get trapped in the middle.  If so he could end up not running which actually could work against the DPP as Ko also has the ability to eat into the KMT urban vote. 

Another key factor is if the KMT can unite around Han or Guo and keep key KMT leaders like Chu, Wang and Ma behind the KMT candidate.  We will know in a month or two when the KMT primary is done.  And yes, even if the KMT end up not ousting Tsai they have a better shot of taking down the DPP majority although if the Ko forces run their on list on the PR slate they could deny the Pan-Blue forces from winning a majority on their own.

[jaichind]

Looking at how various media outfits line up in the DPP and KMT primaries gives us a sense of the drivers behind these two parties. 

The historical drivers of DPP are various pro-independence NGOs and a majority of them are the Right Independence variety .  Most of them backed Lai this time around and are all clearly steamed at Tsai victory.  Many are coming out to attack the DPP for authoritarian rigging the primary using language that sounds a lot like their anti-KMT attacks back in the 1980s and 1990s.   Their anger are less about how much they love Lai but more about now this primary shows that the the Emperor has no clothes where their power over the DPP has been shown up as small if not insignificant.  This primary is a victory of Left Independence (based on Western social Democratic system rejection of PRC versus any ethnic difference between Mainland and Taiwan.)  The old Taiwan Independence NGO were mostly formed in the 1960s to 1980s as a reaction to the KMT Chinese nationalism narrative and focused on Taiwan nationalism (to counter KMT) and social conservatism (to counter the CCP of the 1960s and 1970s).  This bloc seems to be weakening more within the DPP.  While DPP is now not a Leftist  party this primary shows that is is a Progressive party.

The KMT primary battle between Han and Guo and how key players are picking sides is interesting.   At the grassroots and politicians side this battle is more about urban middle class KMT (Guo) vs rural local faction KMT (Han) where Han is the insurgent force. How the various pro-KMT media outlets are picking sides are mostly about how various ROC big capital are aligned.   China Times historically has been light blue (less focused on Chinese nationalism)  versus UDN's deep blue (more focused on Chinese nationalism).  But in the mid 2000s. China Times was squired by the 旺旺(Want Want) conglomerate and is led by 蔡衍明(Tsai Eng-meng).  His political position used to be fairly neutral if not pro-DPP back in the 1990s but in the 2000s decide that he is ALL IN  on the Mainland China market.  So  China Times by the late 2000s became a deep blue if not outright pro-CCP media outfit.  For most of the 2010s there was no real difference between China Times and UDN.  After KMT's defeat in 2016 and chances if it coming back to power within 10 years remote, it seems based on China Times discussion with CCP high command, China Times switched to back Ko as a politician that the CCP wanted to back as a alternative to KMT and DPP.   After the 2018 local elections it seems the CCP saw that the KMT could come back in 2020 and China Times shifted over to a pro-Han position.  When Terry Guo who is a business rival of 蔡衍明(Tsai Eng-meng) got into the KMT primary race China Times went overdrive in backing Han.  UDN which is close to ex-KMT Prez Ma is backing Guo.  Ettoday which is controlled by 王令麟(Wang Lin-Ling)'s 東森(Eastern) conglomerate is actually a rival of   蔡衍明(Tsai Eng-meng), using the logic of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, is backing Guo.  These conglomerates are far more powerful now within the KMT since after 2016 the Tsai regime pretty much went after KMT assets and froze all their once large financial empire.

 

[jaichind]

The KMT primary poll will be done 7/8 to 7/14 with results announced 7/15

Other than Han Guo and Chu the other 2 candidates are 周錫瑋(Chou Hsi-wei) who was county magistrate of Taipei county (now called New Taipei City)  in the 2005-2010 period and 張亞中(Chang Ya-chung) who is a pro-KMT political science processor and had led a KMT splinter party in the 2000s period.

Xfutures (which was way off in the DPP primary by have it as tossup when it was clear to me that Tsai will win and by a wide margin) odds for KMT nomination has Guo catching up

Guo  47
Han  46
Chu    7

[jaichind]

UDN poll a week before the KMT primary begins

Guo and Han are neck to neck

Han  30
Guo  29
Chu  15


General election polls seems to converge to pre-DPP primary level support for Tsai as the HK protest impact starts to die down

3-way
Han 35(+4)
Ko   26(-6)
Tsai 22

Guo 31(+2)
Ko   24(-7)
Tsai 19(-2)

Ko   28
Chu 25
Tsai 21

2-way does have Tsai in a much stronger position to pre-DPP primary levels especially against Han
Han  43
Tsai  38

Guo 45
Tsai 30

Chu 42
Tsai 33



This polls seems to indicate that Tsai has gain strength in the urban youth vote where they are more likely to back her versus the KMT but she still loses them if Ko is in the race.  Han on the other hand has lost ground in the way he has ran a fairly Deep Blue and divisive way seems to have turned him off to the moderate urban vote.  Guo and Chu which has better urban appeal still does fairly well versus Tsai in a 2 way race.

So if Ko is not going to run the KMT is better off running Guo to appeal to urban pro-Ko voters but if it is a 3 way race the KMT is better off running Han to mobilize the old KMT rural factional base.

Xfutures odds on KMT nomination has Han doing better after having some very successful rallies

Han 51
Guo 44
Chu   5

Pro-Han rally in 新竹(Hsinchu) seems to have attracted 120K which is huge given the population of 新竹(Hsinchu)

[jaichind]

Reading various assessments from political pundits reveals something interesting.   

Many old pro-independence pundits which all backed Lai are still pretty bitter and are predicting doom for the DPP and Tsai in 2020 and that Tsai will lose in a landslide defeat.  Pro-KMT and Chinese nationalists (like myself) pundits mostly feel that Tsai has re-invented herself in her primary battle with Lai and with the HK protest factor will be a formidable foe for a potentially splintered KMT.

[jaichind]

Some details on the KMT "primary."  Whereas the DPP "primary" is a pure average of poll support in a 3 way matchup with KMT Han and Ko, the KMT "primary" will do the same (use 3 way race with DPP Tsai and Ko as opponents) but weight such results with 85%.  The other 15% is a poll of the support of the 5 KMT candidates (Han Guo Chu and 2 other minor candidates Chang and Chou) relative to each other which is a more traditional "open primary" style.

[jaichind]

There is one overlap between the 5 "DPP primary" pollsters and the 5 "KMT primary" pollsters.  Looking at the dispersion of the KMT result will shed some light on claims of fraud in the DPP primary.

Again, the main complaint of the pro-Lai Taiwan Independence establishment about this DPP primary fraud are the 5 DPP pollsters came out with results that were all within 2% of each other which seems too "fishy." 


The 5 DPP primary pollsters were: DPP itself, 山水(Focused Survey research) [pro-DPP], 趨勢(Trend polls) [pro-DPP], 全方位(Total View) [used to be Ettoday polling, neutral and if anything lean KMT], and 循證(Evidence Based) [pro-DPP].

The 5 KMT primary pollsters are: UDN (pro-KMT newspaper), TVBS (pro-KMT cable News channel), 全方位(Total View), 全國公信力(Real Survey) (pro-KMT), 世新大學(Shih Hsin University) [neutral and perhaps lean DPP].

Of all these pollsters TVBS and UDN have a fairly strong reputation for quality political polling and both does a good job of filtering out house effects.  The pro-DPP pollsters have a track record of getting if wrong by wild margins in favor of DPP and sort of only are correct in DPP wave elections.

Anyway the small  全方位(Total View) (it seems to only have 6 full time employees and uses a large number of consultants and stringers) is the only overlap.  It will be interesting if 全方位(Total View) results for the KMT primary matches that from UDN and TVBS.  They are are similar then is is unlikely that the DPP primary results are way off since UDN and TVBS are fairly accurate .  If 全方位(Total View) is way off from UDN and TVBS in the KMT primary then the pro-Lai forces might have a point.

Of course  there is one more source of "fraud" in this entire process.  In both the DPP and KMT "primary" the  party high command  in question (DPP or KMT) generates  a large  list of phone numbers (line or cell) for to call.  It then divides the list into 5 sub-lists randomly  and gives each sub-list to each pollster who then randomly call  phone numbers on that list.  The pollster main value add is to do the phone calls and do the right demographic weighting of the results.  it is totally possible that the DPP primary was rigged when DPP high command produced a tainted (pro-Tsai) list of phone numbers.    But assuming they did not do that 全方位(Total View) results would give a good idea if methodological problems with the pro-DPP pollsters ended producing a "rigged" result for Tsai over Lai in the DPP primary. 

[jaichind]

Heavy pro-Green 優傳媒(Umedia) poll

2-way
DPP Tsai   36.2
KMT Guo  36.0

DPP Tsai   43.6
KMT Han  32.2

3-way
DPP Tsai  29.7
KMT Guo  28.4
Ko           18.7

DPP Tsai  31.0
KMT Han  27.1
Ko           26.9

So pro-Green polls seem to have Guo clearly ahead of Han where as pro-Blue polls has Han with a slight edge over Guo.

[jaichind]

Pro-Green Apple Daily poll

KMT face-off has Guo closing the gap

Han 29.6(+0.6)
Guo 28.4(+7.0)
Chu 12.3(-1.1)



3-way heats

KMT Han 35.8(+2.1)
DPP Tsai 24.0(-2.7)
Ko          23.1(+0.2)



KMT Guo 32.5(+5.2)
Ko           21.4(+0.4)
DPP Tsai  20.1(-5.1)



Note as the KMT primary approaches, the KMT lead over Tsai would get artificially high as non-KMT voters would back one of the KMT candidates over their preferred candidate to back the KMT candidate they they want.  The same thing took place while the DPP primary was going on and this trend will get stronger as we go into the KMT primary next couple of weeks.

In this poll even though Guo's lead over Tsai is about the same as Han, Han's absolute level of support is higher than Guo and based on this polls result Han would win the KMT primary.

[jaichind]

Xfutures odds on KMT nomination has Han's chances rising given recent polls from various sources having him holding a narrow edge over Guo

Han 55
Guo 41
Chu   4

[jaichind]

KMT final debate was earlier today.  Mostly status quo.  Guo failed to deliver a knockout blow and most likely will lose to Han

Xfutures for KMT nomination

Han   62
Guo   34
Chu    4


If you look at the youtube live stream the number of people watching were well above the DPP primary debate back in early June.

                          Views    Likes   Dislikes
TTV                  157,180  1200      154
USTV                 22,146    278        36
UDN                  18,814    165        21
CTI                  195,174  3500      270
TVBS                 21,003    225        30
AppleLive            8,047      51        17
CTV                  13,596     495       33
SNTV                10,655      68        69
Liberty Times     17,290     52         73
----------------------------------------------------
                      463,905  6,034      703

                          Views    Likes   Dislikes
CTV                     44,564   799     215 -> Gov owned, pro-DPP these days
SNTV                    2,606     84       61 -> Deep Green - South Rural
Liberty Times       29,438   462     144 -> Pro-DPP - North Urban
TVBS                   12,630    95     334  -> Pro-KMT
USTV                     8,585   68      163 -> Lean KMT
UDN                    10,379    73      213 -> Pro-KMT
TTV                     37,523  139      843 -> Lean KMT - fairly urban
NOW                   14,043  119      156 -> Lean KMT
NextTV                 8,885   109       96 -> No clear lean
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        168,653  1,948  2,225

[jaichind]

One last theory has to do with the social conservationism of the pro-independence bloc.  There are two types of Taiwan Independence.  Left Independence and Right Independence.  Left Independence is a lot larger and mostly are for Independence due to different social economic and political systems between ROC and PRC.  They tend not to reject their ethnic identity as Chinese but view Taiwan as a separate Chinese state (like Egypt is a separate Arab state) and does not rule out unification if the PRC and ROC social systems somehow converge.  Right independence are socially conservative and tend to reject the Chinese identity at the ethnic and for some even at the biological/genetic level.   Right Independence size are small but a lot more organized and contains a bunch of wealthly individuals.  It is Right Independence that make up most of the money and organisation of the pro-independence bloc.  This group at some level is resentful of Tsai as a women (and unmarried at that) leader and earlier in 2016-2017 also held pro-gay marriage positions which she mostly quietly retracted.  Of course the Right Independence bloc knows that DPP is the only game in town to make progress on Taiwan Independence and part of the DPP coalition does include urban progressives so Right Independence tends to keep quite about their socially conservative views.  But what they can do is to overthrow DPP leaders that does not jive with their socially conservative views  using the excuse that they are not "pure" enough on Taiwan Independence.

Interesting. I was under the impression that many Left independence activists are anti-Chinese identity as well.

Depends on the word Chinese.  Chinese can be mapped to two different words: 中國 which is political or 中華 which is cultural and ethnic.   Left Independence, especially those in leadership, have no problem with  中華 but object to 中國 as 中國 has a connotation of a authoritarian centralizing political superstate that has political control of all ethnic Chinese.  Many Left Independence leaders, at least of the older generation, started their political careers as Left unification before shifting over. Right Independence really denies their ties to 中華  either by talking up the their ethnic ties to Taiwanese aborigines or talking up Japanese cultural influence.

My own views on this are unique in so far I was Right Independence in junior high school not because of concerns of  Chinese identity but more because of virulent hatred of Communism and Leftism drove me to have as anti-PRC position as possible.  Then in high school I discovered the wonders of Chinese nationalism and realized I can be  still have virulent hatred of Leftism and still have a strong Chinese identity.  I also realized what made me hated the PRC was their rejection of a traditionalist Chinese nationalism (understand this was the CCP of the 1970s and early 1980s.)  In fact I used my  Chinese nationalism  to further build my  virulent hatred of Leftism.  This type of transformation is quite unique.    There usually are very little shift between Right Independence and Right Unification but plenty of shift between Left Independence and Left Unification.  

[jaichind]

Storm Media Group poll done by TISR (which has a slight pro-Green lean)

KMT candidate preference
Han   31.6
Guo   29.5
Chu   13.0

3-way matchup
KMT Han 35.7
DPP Tsai  26.7
Ko           21.2

KMT Guo 30.9
DPP Tsai  23.3
Ko          18.1

DPP Tsai  25.0
KMT Chu 24.5
Ko          23.1

So this poll also have Han with the lead.  The main problem for the KMT is that if Ko is really running third place he could end up not running.  1-on-1 versus Tsai, Guo is stronger than Han. But the poll numbers will have the KMT nominate Han.

[jaichind]

Xfutures for KMT nomination

Guo continues free fall

Han   67
Guo   29
Chu    4

[jaichind]

Green Party poll

Party support

KMT     34.8
DPP     31.7
NPP     13.5
PFP       2.9
GP        1.5
TSU      0.9


2-way
DPP Tsai   51.9
KMT Han   37.6

DPP Tsai   42.5
KMT Guo  41.3

3-way
DPP Tsai   34.4
KMT Han  29.6
Ko            27.2

DPP Tsai   32.4
KMT Guo  27.3
Ko           25.0

This is clearly a very Green biased sample (the Blue Green balance is 37.7 to 46.4 when all signs are it should be around the other way around) still it shows that Guo is better than Han at attracting Centrist and Pan-Green voters than Han.