2022 ROC local elections Nov 2022

[jaichind]

CEC vote share by party so far has

KMT        50.00%
DPP         41.63%
TPP           1.49%
NPP           0.62%

Pro-TPP is   3.02%
KMT rebels  1.70%
DPP rebel    0.61%

Which gives us

Pan-Blue    56.21%
Pan-Green  42.86%

Clearly and easily the worst vote share result for Pan-Greens in Mayor/County magistrate election since 1985.

[jaichind]

So now begins the titanic battle of Tsai vs Lai Part II.  Who becomes PM who will be critical?  If Tsai has any chance of keeping some influence within the DPP will depend on the resources the PM will have access to help Tsai control the various DPP factions. 

[jaichind]

Just like in 2018 pro-Green 三立(SETN) pretty much had "fake" numbers in battleground cities/counties which had a much greater pro-DPP lean in the count.  Only when the CEC came out with real numbers did they start converging their count to the real count.  The main motivation is commercials.  If they show the count as too negative for DPP their viewer will get demoralized and turn off the TV which is clearly what they do not want.  Their job is to keep their pan-Green viewer watching their broadcast as long as possible.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

So what are the differences between the Tsai and Lai factions? I know Lai is perceived as more of a pro-independence hardliner, but that’s about it.

[jaichind]

In Jiayi City(嘉義市) (PVI Green +4) City assembly election one 顏色不分藍綠支持性專區顏色田慎節 (or Neither Blue nor Green adult entertainment  Zone Tien Shen Jie) was elected.



Her main plank is of course the creation of adult entertainment zones and the legalization of strip dancing as well as a government gift of cash for anyone turning 18 (I assume to spend money in these adult entertainment  zones)

What is interesting is that by my count out of a city assembly of 23, it is split between Pan-Blue 11 and Pan-Green 11.  So she will hold the balance of power.  To be fair the Pan-Green forces are much more diverse and it is not clear they can come together to make a bid for power.

[jaichind]

So what are the differences between the Tsai and Lai factions? I know Lai is perceived as more of a pro-independence hardliner, but that’s about it.

The policy difference is more superficial although, in theory, the Lai faction is more for Taiwan Independence.    The key difference is Lai is based on the powerful New Tide faction and Tsai is based on those opposed to New Tide.  Lai has his base in the South and older DPP voters while Tsai has her base in the North and youth DPP voters.

[jaichind]

Looking through the results of city and county assembly elections it seems the Pan-Greens did not do that badly.  It is an underperformance relative to 2014 but an improvement from the 2018 disaster.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

The failure of the voting age referendum is certainly a good sign for the KMT going into 2024.

[jaichind]

The failure of the voting age referendum is certainly a good sign for the KMT going into 2024.

The entire referendum was a scam by the DPP to get credit with youth voters by pushing for a vote knowing that there is no way it could pass the threshold. 

[jaichind]

DPP has been driven back to its core base in the South


Similar to 2005-2006

[jaichind]

In Yilan County(宜蘭縣)  (PVI Green +6) an ex-DPP MLA won re-election as a member of 正神名黨 (Main Gods Party) which is a Conservative pro-religious party.  This party was created as a reaction to LGBT activism and gay marriage on ROC and pushed social conservatism. 

The party seems to support deities of all faiths. 

[jaichind]

Widely circulated "Top ten attractive women running for block head".  It seems 6 won 4 lost. 5 7 8 9 lost while the rest won.  Historically only retired people run for block head which has no salary but does have a budget.  Last couple of election cycles there has been more youth running for this role as many see this as a way to build a network that could be useful in their future career (as small business owners or even potentially in politics)



More close-up picture of #1 on the list from her Facebook.  She won.  Given her use of ROC flag she is mostly likely pro-KMT.

[jaichind]

陳其邁(Chen Chi-Mai) who is the DPP mayor of Kaoshiung City (高雄市) (PVI Green +6) who just won re-election by a solid margin will take over as acting DPP Chairperson while an election is set up.  DPP Prez Tsai will want to put in someone she trusts in that role.  Her ability to do this will become the first battle in the Tsai vs Lai War Part II.

[jaichind]

KMT Chairperson speech calls this a victory of anti-DPP forces.  His speech is hinting that he is not likely to run in 2024 and that he is likely to work for a KMT-TPP alliance.

[jaichind]

Pan-Blue barely holds on to  Kaoshiung City (高雄市) (PVI Green +6) City Council 33-32 over Pan-Greens.  Most likely Pan-Blues will win the race for Speaker.  The Pan-Green bloc has in it a few MLAs that have TSP or NPP backgrounds.  It is not clear at all they will back the DPP candidate for Speaker.  Also, a couple of Pan-Green MLAs are really KMT rebels from Aborigine districts who might take advantage of their win to move to the Pan-Blue camp given the heavy pro-Blue lean of the Aborigine vote.

[jaichind]

The internal DPP recriminations have started already.  No one is attacking DPP Prez Tsai.  But that is in keeping with Chinese Confucian norms of blind loyalty toward authority and leadership.  Instead, the de facto attacks on DPP Prez Tsai come from the old fashion Chinese philosophical rebellion workaround of 清君側 (removing poor ministers) where attacks are on those closest to Tsai which everyone knows is just a de facto attack on Tsai.  

The idea is "No, I am not rebelling against the Emperor.  That would be criminal.  I am ultra-loyal to the Emperor.  I am merely forming a righteous rising against the poor counsel that has led the Emperor astray.  Our armies  march toward the capital not against the Emperor but FOR the Emperor to remove these poor counsels."  

[jaichind]

The fake results from ROC media, especially pro-Green SETN, were again on display if you go back and watch their election night broadcasts.  I will just focus on Taipei City and the number of votes for KMT Chiang and DPP Chen on SETN and TVBS.   Both claim to have thousands of stringers at all the counting centers reporting unofficial results (I have a funny feeling they are the same stringers since this allows the various media houses to save cost.)

                     SETN                                      TVBS   
Time       Chiang           Chen                  Chiang          Chen
4:06       1,537              1,589                     117              82
4:12       5,317              5,542                  4,397          3,290
4:20      35,697           35,048                 26,694        19,744
4:32      90,663           91,277                 93,414        67,533
4:41     169,221         160,127              144,794        106,323
4:53     257,012         247,032              225,516        169,082
5:04     331,239         310,528              289,607        217,208
5:17     369,918         355,921              340,541        258,701
5:29     398,217         376,124              366,796        279,057
5:42     399,662         376,781              379,259        288,899
5:53     399,811         376,916              384,001        293,151
6:08     410,097         377,062              387,849        295,548
6:19     410,214         377,259              390,499        297,062
6:31     410,767         377,812              391,172        297,891
6:42     411,122         378,127              392,037        298,603
6:58     411,412         378,374              392,467        298,969
7:11     411,847         378,572              392,862        299,238
7:26     412,329         378,815              395,320        299,721
7:33     431,082         378,845              423,877        316,572
7:41     458,927         378,845              458,927        342,039
7:55     489,396         378,845              489,396        365,740
8:09     523,118         390,070              523,118        390,070
                              
Final
Result   575,590         434,558             575,590          434,558

After the polls closed at 4:00 PM both channels raced ahead with their unofficial count.  Pro-Blue TVBS got it right in terms of vote share throughout the count but Pro-Green SETN had to show a much closer race or risk demoralizing Pan-Green voters by shutting off the TV.  As a result, SETN had an "incorrect" count for the first hour or so.

By 5:30 PM SETN sense that a) their vote share is wrong and b) their count is too far ahead of reality so they slow down to a crawl.  From 5:29 PM to 7:26 PM their Chen total vote barely changed while their Chiang total edged up a bit in preparation for convergence to the real result.  Starting at 7:26 PM the official CEC numbers have caught up to SETN numbers for Chiang but are still way behind Chen given SETN vote share is wrong.  To "fix" this SETN from 7:26 PM to 7:55 PM the Chiang total vote go from 412K to 489K while Chen's total vote stayed at 379K !!!  Then at 8:09 PM, the Chen vote count in CEC caught up with SETN which allows SETN just to report the official CEC number,

TVBS was better in the sense their numbers matched the final vote share pretty well.  But they were also guilty of going too far ahead in their count.  By 5:42 PM the TVBS vote count started to slow down and from 6:31 PM to 7:11 PM the TVBS count completely stopped.  Starting at 7:11 PM the TVBS count started again to converge toward the official CEC which was not that hard since the TVBS vote count mostly got the vote share close to the real result.

[jaichind]

I still stand by my assessment that the worse the DPP does in these elections the better its chances in 2024.  The idea is the better the DPP does in 2022 the more power DPP Prez Tsai has to be able to stop DPP VP Lai from becoming the DPP nominee.  Before this election, I figured the DPP had a 55% shot at winning in 2024.  Now that the DPP got hammered in 2022  I would say the DPP has a 65% shot at winning in 2024. 

It seems very unlikely Lai can be stopped now within the DPP nomination.  The only combination I can think of that can be favored over Lai would be a KMT-TPP Guo-Ko ticket.  All other KMT-TPP combinations are Lai victories (perhaps landslides if KMT and TPP run separately) or at best tossups.  To be fair Lai's support is over-polled since he is the "opposition" to DPP Prez Tsai within the DPP and gets crossover support from Pan-Blue voters that oppose Tsai just for being the leader of the DPP.  Once Lai takes over the DPP this Pan-Blue crossover support will disappear.  Still, Lai has now to seen as the clear favorite to win in 2024.

[jaichind]

ROC equities drop 2% on election results.  Although it is hard to filter out the impact of PRC anti-lockdown protests.

[Octowakandi]

I still stand by my assessment that the worse the DPP does in these elections the better its chances in 2024.  The idea is the better the DPP does in 2022 the more power DPP Prez Tsai has to be able to stop DPP VP Lai from becoming the DPP nominee.  Before this election, I figured the DPP had a 55% shot at winning in 2024.  Now that the DPP got hammered in 2022  I would say the DPP has a 65% shot at winning in 2024. 

It seems very unlikely Lai can be stopped now within the DPP nomination.  The only combination I can think of that can be favored over Lai would be a KMT-TPP Guo-Ko ticket.  All other KMT-TPP combinations are Lai victories (perhaps landslides if KMT and TPP run separately) or at best tossups.  To be fair Lai's support is over-polled since he is the "opposition" to DPP Prez Tsai within the DPP and gets crossover support from Pan-Blue voters that oppose Tsai just for being the leader of the DPP.  Once Lai takes over the DPP this Pan-Blue crossover support will disappear.  Still, Lai has now to seen as the clear favorite to win in 2024.

Is this Terry Guo who you are thinking could win?

[jaichind]

Looks like Su will stay as PM.  If this this must mean that DPP Prez Tsai is going all out to stop Lai despite a very weak hand.   What DPP Prez Tsai will try to do is to unite the Tsai and Su factions to take on everyone else within DPP that will gather around Lai.  What Tsai will count on is the resources that the PM office under Su can control to try to make a last desperate battle to stop Lai. 

To be fair, there still is that Jiayi City(嘉義市) (PVI Green +4) mayor election Dec 18th which was delayed due to the death of a minor candidate as well as the by-election for the MP seat vacated by KMT Chiang.  It could be that the wolves within DPP have been held back until these elections are done and then demand Tsai-Su give up their control over the powerful PM office.  We will see in the coming month.

[jaichind]

I still stand by my assessment that the worse the DPP does in these elections the better its chances in 2024.  The idea is the better the DPP does in 2022 the more power DPP Prez Tsai has to be able to stop DPP VP Lai from becoming the DPP nominee.  Before this election, I figured the DPP had a 55% shot at winning in 2024.  Now that the DPP got hammered in 2022  I would say the DPP has a 65% shot at winning in 2024. 

It seems very unlikely Lai can be stopped now within the DPP nomination.  The only combination I can think of that can be favored over Lai would be a KMT-TPP Guo-Ko ticket.  All other KMT-TPP combinations are Lai victories (perhaps landslides if KMT and TPP run separately) or at best tossups.  To be fair Lai's support is over-polled since he is the "opposition" to DPP Prez Tsai within the DPP and gets crossover support from Pan-Blue voters that oppose Tsai just for being the leader of the DPP.  Once Lai takes over the DPP this Pan-Blue crossover support will disappear.  Still, Lai has now to seen as the clear favorite to win in 2024.

Is this Terry Guo who you are thinking could win?

Yes.  CW is that a KMT-TPP grand alliance ticket of Guo-Ko or some other Guo-TPP ticket with Ko becoming PM would gather enough support to give this ticket an edge over Lai.  Anything else means at best tossup or Lai advantage.

[jaichind]

Hsinchu City(新竹市) (PVI Blue +3) ended up being

TPP        45.02%
DPP        35.68%
KMT       18.07%

It was suppose to be a 4- way race with NPP in the fray.  When NPP candidate dropped out back in the summer I thought it would benefit DPP but right after the NPP candidate candidate dropped out the polling had TPP pulling ahead of KMT.  It seems there is a large anti-KMT anti-DPP vote here that all shifted to TPP after the NPP candidate dropped out.  Polling shows a large majority of NPP vote sent to TPP.

This anti-KMT anti-DPP vote can be seen in the 2020 legislative race it was

KMT         36.96%
DPP         31.81%
NPP         28.61%

where a good part of the NPP vote came from the TPP vote

In 2022, around 13% of the TPP 45.02% vote most likely came from pro-KMT anti-DPP tactical vote.  

Had TPP stayed in the race it would have got around 7% from DPP which is the core NPP vote.  NPP can also can get around 3%-4% from TPP.  So had NPP stayed in the race I think the race would have been

DPP        32
KMT       31
TPP        25
NPP        10

What would have taken place would most likely have been anti-DPP tactical voting by TPP to defeat KMT versus the other way around.  But if the TPP vote stayed firm then DPP would most likely have won.  So it is interesting that NPP dropping out most likely hurt both KMT and DPP and took away both parties chances of winning since it consolidated the anti-KMT anti-DPP vote.

[jaichind]

Ettoday 2024 Prez 3-way trial runs.  Given the most recent setbacks, this is going to be the DPP floor

KMT Hou     35.4
DPP Lai       29.4
TPP Ko        23.2



KMT Guo     32.0
DPP Lai       31.7
TPP Ko        22.6
This is not realistic.  If Guo runs it can only be part of a KMT-TPP Guo-Ko united front ticket



TPP Ko        36.1
DPP Lai       34.7
KMT Chu     12.1



DPP Lai       33.1
TPP Ko        27.7
KMT Han     25.9



KMT Hou    39.1
TPP Ko       25.0
DPP Chen   21.9    (This former DPP VP Chen)



KMT Guo   38.0
TPP Ko      24.0
DPP Chen  22.7



TPP Ko      37.4
DPP Chen  27.2
KMT Chu   15.5



TPP Ko      30.7
DPP Chen  27.2
KMT Han    26.2

[jaichind]

Maioli County (苗栗縣) (PVI Blue +11) comparative results

County magistrate

KMT rebel     42.66% (Huang faction)
DPP              31.24%   
NPP              13.47%
KMT              10.96% (Liu faction)


County assembly election is split 3 way between Liu faction, Huang faction and Pan-Greens

                     Seats     Vote share
Deep Blue            0         0.40%   (radical unification)
KMT+                14        34.37%  (KMT plus pro-KMT independents) (mostly Liu faction)  
KMT rebels         14        32.47%  (pro-KMT rebel candidates) (mostly Huang faction)
TPP                     0          4.21%
Pan-Green         10         27.77%  (DPP NPP pro-DPP independents)

The Pan-Green vote on the county magistrate vote clearly outstripped the Pan-Green county assembly vote.  This shows the power of KMT factions at the county assembly level.  

There are clear signs of Liu faction KMT voters tactically voting for KMT rebel (to stop DPP) and DPP (to stop Huang faction KMT rebel).  NPP candidate had good youth appeal and most have captured the TPP assembly vote as well as some KMT (mostly Liu faction) youth vote.