2024 ROC Prez and Legislative elections Jan 13th

[jaichind]

DPP renegade Formosa Times (heavy Green lean) poll results from Aug Sept and Oct on Hou-Ko vs Lai and Ko-Hou vs Lai

             Hou-Ko    Lai                    Ko-Hou    Lai
Oct          46.1      36.8                    47.4      35.3
Sept        41.8      43.4                    43.2       41.5
Aug         40.9      41.1                    44.4       38.3

Hou is getting relatively stronger when compared to Ko over time.  Lai is also losing ground in a 2-way race.

[jaichind]

TPP Ko and KMT Hou talks mostly are going nowhere.  Both agree that talks move to a KMT-TPP talk where KMT Chairperson Chu is also getting involved.  In theory, this means that Chu could work out a deal with Ko that cuts out Hou.  In practice this seems unlikely and we will get the same deadlock.

[jaichind]

Political betting markets on vote share in a 3-way race

DPP Lai      42%
TPP Ko       31%
KMT Hou    27%

[jaichind]

KMT ad for a rally with KMT Hou, 2020 KMT candidate Han, and Taichung City Mayor Lu  (盧秀燕(Lu Shiow-Yen)).



This picture may very well include the 2020 2024 and 2028 KMT Prez candidate, assuming that KMT Hou does not win in 2024 with all 3 most likely losing.  Once KMT Hou loses the next line as far as star power in the KMT camp would be Taichung City Mayor Lu to take on DPP Lai.  

2028 will most likely be close but DPP Lai should be able to pull off re-election even in a 1-on-1 race against Lu.   In 2032 it will be the turn of Taipei mayor Chiang who most likely will be a shoein to win.

[jaichind]

DPP MP  趙天麟(Chao Tien-lin) of Kaoshiung 6th had to drop out of running for re-election after it was revealed that he had a 10-year affair with someone from Mainland China indicating that he has not dropped out of politics.  To show that there might be some political comeback in the future he bizarrely held a stepping down banquet to thank everyone in his district for their support.  At the banquet, he also apologized again to his wife publically on stage and it was clear she was very uncomfortable being put in such a situation.



The DPP will nominate MLA 黃捷(Huang Jie) who has a TPP background and is only 30.  I think the race in  Kaoshiung 6th might turn into a tossup due to a radical Taiwan Independence Deep Green (although anti-Tsai) candidate in the mix.  The main problem for 黃捷(Huang Jie)  is the other DPP MLAs in the district.  If she wins then she will be there for a long time given her age and they will be cut off from a promotion to MP.  It is totally possible some of the DPP votes might go to the Deep Green independent making this race a tossup.

[jaichind]

First of the KMT-TPP talks between Ko and KMT Chairperson Chu (and 2016 KMT Perz candidate) begins.

The meeting is a nothing-burger as they merely agreed to stuff they most de facto agreed to already.  Namely, the target is KMT-TPP cooperation in legislative races which opens up the opportunity for KMT and TPP kingpins to campaign for legislative candidates from the other party.  If the DPP is defeated in the Prez race the KMT will form the cabinet and even if the KMT gets a legislative majority there will be a post-election KMT-TPP alliance in the legislature.

It seems Ko has backed down on the issue of the Prez ticket MUST be Ko-Hou or Hou-Ko and that Ko has to pick Hou as his VP candidate if Ko "wins" whatever process is worked out and must serve as VP candidate to Hou if he "loses."  I think he is giving on this point to gain leverage on the Prez selection process talks to come.

In other words, the real hard negotiations are still to come.

[jaichind]

Latest Ettoday poll (this is the most pro-Hou poller this election cycle) (change from 2 weeks ago)

3-way (Lai loses to both Hou and Ko)
DPP Lai            33.8 (-0.9)
KMT Hou          28.3 (+0.9)
TPP Ko             26.1 (+0.6)




4-way (Hou and Ko gain from Guo)
DPP Lai           33.5 (-0.1)
KMT Hou         27.6 (+0.9)
TPP Ko            23.8 (+1.7)
pro-KMT Guo     7.8 (-1.9)

Comparing 3-way and 4-way results it seems some Lai-Guo marginal voters shifted over to Hou and Ko in the 3-way poll.


Hou-Ko alliance
Hou-Ko            41.1
DPP Lai            35.3
Pro-KMT Guo     8.8

Ko-Hou            40.9
DPP Lai            34.6
Pro-KMT Guo     7.0



On who's election will cause conflict with the PRC
DPP Lai          54.0
KMT Hou          8.9
TPP Ko             8.4


Are you worried about a possible PRC-ROC war Yes/No 65.9/30.9
The 2024 election will impact war or peace between PRC-ROC Yes/No  63.9/31.5


The worried about war and the 2024 election having an impact on war or peace is pretty much the Blue/Green split this election.  The former is the Hou-Ko-Guo vote base and the latter is the Lai vote base.

[jaichind]

Note that both Ko and Chu are wore a blue tie and a white shirt.  This is  suppose to symbolize Blue(KMT)-White(TPP) collaboration 

[jaichind]

DPP renegade Formosa Times poll which has a heavy Green lean 3-way and 4-way by month now that Oct numbers are out.  DPP Lai clearly losing ground from his peak back in August.

3-way


4-way

[jaichind]

鏡新聞(MNEWS) poll.  As mentioned before this is a new media outfit which after recent leadership changes is pro-Green.  It seems their poll is fairly cell phone heavy so they will have a Ko/Guo and TPP lean as well.  Their poll also shows a drop in DPP Lai and DPP fortunes overall.


3-way.  Note that DPP Lai's edge with women is gone while TPP Ko is relatively stronger with men and now KMT Hou is relatively stronger with women.


4-way



KMT takes the lead in the PR vote although TPP has fairly strong numbers in this poll (most likely overestimate of TPP)



KMT also takes the lead in the legislative district generic vote

[jaichind]

TVBS poll for 南投(Nanto) 1st district.  

The KMT incumbent 馬文君(Ma Wen-chun) is the main focus of the DPP attack for trying to block funding for a ROC submarine program which she claims is filled with corruption.  The DPP claims that she is getting in the way of national defense and de facto working for the PRC.

The poll has

KMT       40
DPP        26
Ind.          3 (light Blue)
WP           2 (Left radical unification)

This district is Blue+4 and back in 2020 Ma outperformed the national Pan-Blue vote and won with a 7-point margin

KMT          53.6
DPP          46.4



This poll seems to indicate that DPP attacks on Ma are not having an effect on her fortunes as she is set to win by a much larger margin than in 2020.

The Prez poll has

DPP Lai            32
KMT Hou          21
TPP Ko             21
pro-KMT Guo      7

This is a pretty good poll result for DPP Lai given the Blue+4 lean of the district.

Looking at the crosstabs for the Ko and Guo vote in the legislative race are
              
                Ko            Guo
KMT           61            60
DPP           12            14
Ind.             8              1      (Light Blue)
WP              3              2      (Left radical unification)  

If this sort of pattern is true in other districts (the Ko and Guo vote lean heavily for the KMT legislative candidate), even taking into account the KMT incumbent advantage, the DPP will have a long night in the legislative races.  And this is a poll that seems pretty good for DPP Lai.

[jaichind]

The latest Newtalk poll has KMT Hou and KMT surging.  KMT-TPP talks seem to be eating up all the political energy leaving all talk about DPP related to recent scandals.

3-way is now a 3-way tie !!!




4-way has DPP Lai and KMT Hou in a virtual tie




Party support poll has KMT surging

[jaichind]

It's funny how the poll that has the higher DPP Lai numbers now is TVBS although in relative terms Formsa Times still has a stronger relative DPP Lai position.  TVBS in this part of the cycle is more of a lean DPP poll.  This shows what sort of warped results you get in terms of lean in a 3- and 4-way race polling.

[jaichind]

Formosa Times also shows a KMT Hou surge in both 3-way and 4-way polls

[jaichind]

KMT-TPP talks are still going nowhere.  TPP Ko is insisting on an all-poll-based "primary" while the KMT Hou with backing from KMT Chairperson Chu is still insisting on an open primary.  The KMT is willing to consider something like 50/50 between polling and an open primary but TPP Ko knows that means certain defeat since he is within the margin of error with KMT Hou in the average of polls so any open primary factor would just mean KMT Hou wins the primary short of a KMT Hou polling collapse.  If anything KMT Hou is gaining ground in the polls.

KMT Hou is pretty much saying that Nov 3rd is the last day of talks and if a deal cannot be reached then the talks will end.  Nov 20th is the showdown day since that is the day when the candidates register to be on the ballot.  It could be that even if talks fail a day or two before Nov 20th either KMT or TPP (much more likely TPP) break and agree to withdraw or join the other ticket.

[jaichind]

Pro-KMT Guo produced 1.03 million signatures for his ballot access campaign.  This easily crossed the 300K threshold.   Of course, Guo had tons of resources for this campaign so while this number is somewhat on the high side of what was expected it is not a surprise.

For comparison, in 2012 Soong launched a campaign for signatures to get ballot access so he can run as the PFP candidate.  He got around 500K signatures but ended up with around 370K votes due to anti-DPP tactical voting for KMT Ma.  I suspect if Guo runs he will meet with the same fate. 

Of course, this 1.03 million signatures does give Guo some political capital to play with when he negotiates with KMT Hou or TPP Ko.  I suspect if KMT-TPP talks fail then TPP Ko will try to loop in pro-KMT Guo into his camp. The problem is that pro-KMT Guo will insist on being the Prez candidate which would not be acceptable to TPP Ko.

Net net, the most likely result is still a 4 way race with some chance of TPP Ko and/or pro-KMT Guo breaking last minute and not register and instead go form some deal with another pan-Blue candidate.

[jaichind]

On the day that KMT Hou said that talks would end if no deal was made TPP Ko blinked.  TPP Ko said that if the KMT accepted an all-poll primary he would agree to be the VP candidate of KMT Hou if the poll result is in the margin of error.  Sort of covering the spread logic, this means for TPP Ko to win his proposed all-poll primary he would have to beat KMT Hou by something like 3%.  Not clear if this is acceptable to KMT Hou.

[jaichind]

If the KMT does accept TPP Ko's proposal of an all-poll primary then they will have to work out what type of poll.  It could be a 3-way or 4-way or Ko-Hou vs Lai relative to Hou-Ko vs Lai.

If you just take the straight average of the recent public polls which very skewed cell phones which should give the edge to Ko you find that is the case

3-way
DPP Lai          32.3%
TPP Ko           25.8%
KMT Hou        23.4%

4-way
DPP Lai          30.8%
TPP Ko           22.4%
KMT Hou        21.7%
pro-KMT Guo   8.8%

Ko-Hou           46.9%
Lai                  33.0%

Hou-Ko            45.5%
Lai                   34.5%

So Ko has a slight edge in all 3 methods but all within the margin of error and this is an average of fairly cell-heavy pollster which I am sure the KMT will insist that the poll has to be more land line heavy.

[jaichind]

One of the KMT counterpoposals seems to be: all-poll primary but 50% weight on Hou vs Ko and 50% weight on KMT vs TPP party ID.  Since the KMT party ID will most likely beat TPP by at least 5% this is sort of like Ko's proposal of a 3% spread edge for KMT but making that spread something like 5% or greater.

I think if they go with Ko's 3% spread idea I figure KMT Hou's chances of winning this "primary" is around 80%.  If they go with KMT's counterproposal then the chances of a Hou victory is something like 99%.

[Octowakandi]

Is VP a valuable position in ROC? Would Ko just vanish if he became VP or would his career be very much alive?

[jaichind]

Is VP a valuable position in ROC? Would Ko just vanish if he became VP or would his career be very much alive?

It is completely ceremonial.  The only "powerful" VP was Lien who was both VP and PM at the same time in the 1996-1998 period.  The point of being VP is to gain name recognition so you can run for Prez later on.

[jaichind]

The potential PR list of TPP is filtered out to the media.  There are several bombshells.  There are many disadvantages to TPP being a one-person party (Ko).  But one advantage is that Ko does not have any factions to balance on the PR list and could put people there to pull in votes for TPP.  The potential list has people from Deep Green, Light Green, Light Blue, and Deep Blue backgrounds.

The ones that for sure that will be at the top are

a) NPP founder and former leader 黃國昌(Huang Kuo-chang).  He is in theory still a member of NPP and will have to leave NPP to run for TPP.  Huang started as Deep Green but became the leader of the anti-DPP faction of NPP.  As a result, he became sort of a NPP rebel even as the NPP itself has become more anti-DPP and Light Green vs Deep Green.  Huang these days is really Light Green but above all is anti-DPP.

b) 陳昭姿(Chen Chao-Tse) who was the key lead of pro-DPP forces in the medical field.  Was very close to DPP Prez Chen.  Turned against DPP in 2020 due to being anti-Tsai.  Ran as a PR candidate for the now defunct Deep Green pro-Chen anti-Tsai TAPA.  He can help TPP rope in some anti-Tsai Deep Green votes that felt that DPP Lai sold out his anti-Tsai credentials just to get the DPP nomination for Prez.

c) 黃珊珊(Huang Shan-shan) who had a Deep Blue NP background before becoming a Light Blue PFP.  Her name is not a surprise since she ran as a pro-TPP candidate in the Taipei mayor election last year.

d) 林國成(Lin Guo-Chen) who is a long-time leader in PFP in Taipei who also started as Deep Blue but has become Light Blue.  

Other rumored people on the list are

e) 郭正亮(Julian Kuo)  who is a former DPP MP.  He was always Light Green but broke with DPP in 2021 over DPP Tsai's handling of COVID-19 vaccines and has been drifting to a Light Blue position as a political commentator.  

f) 蔡正元(Tsai Chen-Yuan) who is a former KMT MP.  He was and still is Deep Blue. But this election cycle has taken a very pro-Ko position because he sees Ko as the only way to beat DPP in 2024.

g) 徐春鶯((Hsu Tusen-Eng) who is the leader of the Mainland Chinese Spouse Association.  She is from the PRC and arrived in ROC in the early 1990s through marriage.  There are a large number of Mainland China spouses living on ROC with many of them having the right to vote.  This is a natural Deep Blue voting bloc but vote at very low rates.  Ko is hoping that by getting Hsu on the TPP PR list he can turn up the turnout of Mainland spouses in favor of TPP.  Hsu is controversial because before coming to ROC she was a member of pro-CCP groups in the PRC and seems to have some role in the PRC local government.  

The DPP is freaking out of the possibility that Hsu could be nominated and elected as a MP.  They are trying to make a legal argument that Hsu cannot run because she did not give up PRC citizenship  This argument will go nowhere.  The laws on ROC and PRC are clear.  PRC and ROC do not recognize each other but their respective laws say that the areas controlled by the other are part of their territory.  So as long as Hsu changed her location of residence to ROC-controlled territory then she can vote and she can run.  Another example of this is one 吾爾開希·多萊特(Wu'erkaixi) who was a key leader of the PRC 1989 Tinennam Square protests.   After the June 4th crackdown, he eventually settled on ROC, married a ROC woman, and continued to be actively politically and increasingly taking a Deep Green position.  In 2020 he ran as a PR candidate for the now-defunct Deep Green TCA.  The issue of being able to run back then was not brought up because he was Deep Green and there was zero chance he would be elected.  

Of course, the DPP's new attack is to attack Hsu's PRC background to consolidate the Deep Green vote behind the DPP which is a sound tactic.  I suspect Ko will not nominate Hsu so as to not give the DPP a weapon but the fact that Hsu was in the news as a possible TPP PR candidate would already give Ko what he needed: Higher Mainland spouse turnout and most likely for TPP.

As a whole, this list seems consequential and I can see TPP winning at least 7-8 PR seats and in a DPP or KMT implosion scenario 9 seats.

[jaichind]

Formosa Times poll on Blue +3 Taipei 4th district.  The DPP incumbent and potential superstar Kao is facing a split of the Pan-Green vote with a strong TSP candidate.  Kao is light Green and appeals to the TPP and some light Blue KMT voters.  But her position makes her an enemy of the Deep Green vote who backed a TSP run.

KMT      43.5 (former incumbent that Kao beat in 2020)
DPP       26.3 (Kao)
TSP       12.1

KMT candidate Lee has 88.5% of the KMT vote while Kao only has 50.6% of the DPP vote with 30.1% of the DPP vote going to the TSP candidate.  TPP vote has 45.4% going to Kao and only 34.8% going to KMT Lee.

For Prez it has

DPP Lai     37.1
KMT Hou   29.6
TPP Ko      17.8

Looks similar to the TVBS poll for this district back in August once we take into account the Green lean of Formsa Times and the Blue lean of TVBS.  The cross tabs seem similar as well.

 
KMT 李彥秀(Lee Yen-Hsiu)     44
DPP 高嘉瑜 (Kao Chia-yu)      27
TSP 吳欣岱(Wu Hsin-Tai)        13

                                                    DPP          KMT        TPP       NPP       TSP        Ind       Minor
                                                   (29%)       (25%)    (15%)     (5%)     (2%)    (19%)    (6%)
KMT 李彥秀(Lee Yen-Hsiu)     44       16            90           36         16         31         39         40
DPP 高嘉瑜 (Kao Chia-yu)      27       38             6           46          56          4         22         16
TSP 吳欣岱(Wu Hsin-Tai)        13      29              0            7           11        57        10            9

DPP Lai      32
TPP Ko       26
KMT Hou    26

[jaichind]

Long-time Japanese commentator on ROC politics 小笠原欣幸 (Ogasawara Yoshiyuki) said that DPP Lai is still very likely to win but his polling numbers are falling and if he hits 35% then anti-DPP tactical voting might work to defeat Lai even in a 3-way or even 4-way race.  He indicated that a DPP legislative majority can be mostly ruled out at this stage so a likely DPP Lai presidency will be difficult for him.

小笠原欣幸 (Ogasawara Yoshiyuki) called every 2022 local election correctly and was attacked by the DPP for his pre-election calls even though his political position mostly lean Green.  Just like in 2022, the DPP is mostly pooh-poohing his current projections saying that they expect DPP Lai to win with 45% of the vote.

[jaichind]

DPP says that they think right now they can only win around 50 seats in the legislative elections: 36 districts, 2 Aborigines, 12 PR.  I think this overestimates their district seat count but for sure this number is not their ceiling either.  I can see the DPP doing 2-3 seats better than this if things move in DPP's direction.