2024 ROC Prez and Legislative elections Jan 13th

[Octowakandi]

So Jaichind do you think that DPP Lai ultimately pulls it off?

Yes.  If I had to pick now DPP Lai still wins with hung legislature and KMT largest party over DPP by a small margin.

The only KMT guy who would be happy with that would be Han, right? He gets to be Speaker and possibly have another shot at the Presidency.

Also any thoughts on why New Taipei City is strongly KMT when it used to not be and is a breeding ground for presidential candidates for the KMT?

[jaichind]

TVBS cross tabs

Gender - KMT relative edge with women is back, TPP Ko vote become more male centric
                 Overall          Male           Female
                                    (49)               (51)
DPP Lai         34               36                33
KMT Hou       31               29                32
TPP Ko          23               28                17


Age - very stark KMT Hou weakness with yout and TPP Ko weakness with older voters
                 Overall           20s               30s             40s           50s           60+
                                     (14)              (15)             (19)         (18)           (33)
DPP Lai         34               28                31               38            35             37  
KMT Hou       31                8                 22               25            45             40  
TPP Ko          23               56                41               27            12               4


Education - KMT Hou strong with High school and vocational school while TPP Ko is stronger with college and grad school
                 Overall       Junior H         High S        Vocation    College       Graduate
                                     (24)              (26)             (12)         (29)           (9)
DPP Lai         34               43                30               32            34             29  
KMT Hou       31               26                41               43            23             27  
TPP Ko          23                 4                18               21            38             40

The undecided voter lean older junior high school education women:  On paper that works to the advantage of KMT Hou and works against TPP Ko.  KMT Hou's main problems is that this group might just not vote leaving him short.


Personal approval/disapproval
DPP Lai       40/38
KMT Hou     35/42
TPP Ko        33/48

Danger for KMT Hou and TPP Ko.  The breakup of the KMT-TPP alliance are turning each bloc of voter to be negative on each other's candidate.  This set of number has to be turned around for KMT Hou to have a chance.

[jaichind]

UDN poll. Same story.  KMT Hou gains ground.  KMT gains ground in the legislative generic district and PR vote.  Change from Sept.

DPP Lai    31 (+1)
KMT Hou  29 (+9)
TPP Ko     21 (--)

The crosstabs look a bit off.  If the age crosstabs are true then DPP Lai and KMT Hou should be tied or DPP Lai should be ahead by 1 and not 2.  The gender crosstabs look very similar to TVBS.



Generic district legislative vote
KMT           30 (+3)
DPP           22 (-1)
TPP             9 (+1)

PR vote
KMT           32 (+3)
DPP           25 (-2)
TPP           15 (--)



KMT Hou's gains relative to the Sept UDN poll are mostly about KMT consolidation around KMT Hou at the expense of TPP Ko plus KMT Hou picks up some independents.  TPP Ko consolidates the TPP vote which makes up for the loss of some of his KMT voters to KMT Hou

As for who is responsible for the KMT-TPP breakup
TPP                   31
KMT                  23
Guo                    7
Everyone            8

with breakdown by party ID mostly as expected.  DPP and independents split on their assessments while KMT and TPP voters blame the other side more.

[jaichind]

The only KMT guy who would be happy with that would be Han, right? He gets to be Speaker and possibly have another shot at the Presidency.

Also any thoughts on why New Taipei City is strongly KMT when it used to not be and is a breeding ground for presidential candidates for the KMT?

I doubt Han can or will run again.  2024 is the last time that was even a viable possibility.  Taipei City is a breeding ground for Prez candidates.  Current Taipei mayor Chiang for sure will definitely run for Prez in 2032 if KMT Hou loses.  From a game theory point of view, I can even see if Chiang does not go all out for the Hou-Chao ticket.  If KMT Hou wins then when Chiang runs in 2032 he is certain to lose due to the anti-incumbency of KMT being in power for 8 years.  DPP Lai winning in 2024 is the best way for Chiang to be elected in 2032.

[jaichind]

Gallup poll has DPP Lai and KMT Hou at a virtual tie

DPP Lai       31.01
KMT Hou     30.94
TPP Ko        18.12




Candidate approval/disapproval still an edge for DPP Lai given the KMT-TPP breakup
DPP Lai   49.14/30.03
KMT Hou 43.69/37.38
TPP Ko    25.62/54.76
This means the old logic is reversed.  KMT Hou might need TPP Ko to be above at least 15% since tactical voting might go in favor of DPP Lai given the fact that DPP Lai's ceiling has gone up.



Party ID (not PR vote poll)
KMT           25.76
DPP            22.86
TPP            11.93
NPP             0.75
PFP             0.63
NP              0.44
TSP             0.26

[jaichind]

KMT candidate 葉元之(Yeh Yuan-Chih) in New Taipei City 7th has been one of the more aggressive advocates of the KMT-TPP alliance and has jumped the gun and last week already started to put up billboards with himself and both Hou and Ko and positioning himself as a joint KMT-TPP candidate. He is an underdog in his district where there is a sizable TPP vote and will only have a chance of the KMT-TPP vote consolidating behind him.



Now that KMT-TPP talks failed he has to rush this weekend to paint over the Ko part of the billboard and replace it with a painting of KMT VP candidate Chao.

Painting of KMT VP candidate Chao on top of TPP Ko's picture done.  Chao complains the painting does not look like him and is not even a realistic painting of his younger self.   Despite this snafu the KMT candidate Yeh will get a lot of publicity out of this and most likely will help his campaign in terms of name recognition.    New Taipei 7th is Green +1 which on paper is ripe for a KMT flip.  In practice, the local DPP MP has very strong local ties so I still rate Yeh as the underdog to flip this seat.

[jaichind]

CredereMedia all cell phone poll which is going to be very youth heavy.  This poll is going to have a large TPP lean.  Even here KMT Hou has caught up with TPP Ko.  Change from Oct

DPP Lai        28.2 (-0.7)
KMT Hou      24.6 (+8.4)
TPP Ko         24.3 (-2.4)



PR vote
KMT             27.1
DPP              22.1
TPP              21.9
NPP               2.0
TSP               1.5


Same trend.  DPP Lai and TPP Ko running ahead of their party PR vote while KMT Hou runs behind the KMT PR vote.  KMT Hou has room to grow.

[jaichind]

Formosa Times poll has it at

DPP Lai        36.3
KMT Hou      31.0
TPP ko         18.0



Which party should be the ruling party
DPP             32.4
KMT             28.9
TPP              14.8


This seems to be a reversion to the mean with the lean Green Formosa Times poll which any KMT-TPP "primary" distortions are finally gone.  A similar story, KMT Hou running behind in relative terms, against the KMT brand vis-a-vis DPP Lai and TPP Ko when compared to their party brands.  KMT Hou is behind but has some room to grow.

[jaichind]

NewTalk polls are not out yet but with Formosa Times polls out along with all other polls my current guess on results are

               Vote share     Chance of winning
DPP Lai        40                      65%
KMT Hou      37                      34%
TPP Ko         23                      ~1%

Despite the KMT Hou surge, what is ominous is that DPP Lai's favorable is better than KMT Hou.  This is likely a temporary surge in TPP negativity on KMT Hou.  But if this is permanent then if TPP Ko collapses some more that could work to the relative benefit of DPP Lai than KMT Hou.  The KMT campaign has to wind up its operation to shift Pan-Blue votes from TPP Ko to KMT Hou and shift their attack onto DPP Lai on anti-incumbency issues to shift the balance of approvals of TPP voters with respect to DPP Lai and KMT Hou.


Current guess on the legislative race
                            District        Aborigine       PR           Total
KMT                       39                  3              14             56
pro-KMT ind             1                   1                                2
TPP                                                               7               7
DPP                       33                   2             13              48

KMT+allies barely enough to win a majority on their own.   KMT has more downside than DPP in district races so it is very easy for KMT+allies to barely miss the majority.

[jaichind]

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/5047729

"Taiwan chip foundries to see 10-20% price cuts due to Chinese competition"

TSMC and other ROC chipmakers are now getting the raw end of the deal by going along with USA chip sanctions.    Ironically, a good part of the PRC chip effort comes from recruiting ROC top tech chip talent to work on PRC over the last few years.  The main issue was that PRC chip consumers were not that "patriotic" in the past and preferred to buy the lower-cost ROC and ROK chips.  The USA chip ban merely gave the PRC chipmakers a captive market to develop the scale with revenue from their new captive market.  Eventually, they will get the correct level of capital scale and intensity based on this revenue and then come out to take on TSMC head-to-head.  These developments are very bad news for the ROC tech industry and they more and more take on the brunt of the PRC moving further up the technology ladder.

The trend last couple of cycles is that the tech-heavy area has been trending DPP due to increased competition from the PRC.  I think that trend will accelerate this election even with more rural-based DPP Lai at the top of the ticket as opposed to the urban-friendly DPP Tsai at the top of the ticket.

The good news from the KMT is that in these areas TPP is strong too and they could cut into the DPP vote even as the trend is for weaker KMT support in these tech-heavy areas.

[jaichind]

The large voting preference gap between youth and older voters on ROC is also reflected in the large gap on ROC between age groups on issues like gay marriage

[jaichind]

Evolution of KMT VP candidate Chao.

Last week Chao was the host of his own highly rated and lean Blue political discussion show on TVBS which has been his role for years.


Then last week he became the last-minute KMT VP candidate.  He had to resign his position as a host on right before the recording of his show.  Here he is saying goodbye to the cross-partisan panel members of his show as they were getting ready to record that day.

 
In two days he showed up with KMT Hou as a special guest to be interviewed by the new host of his old show.

 
A day later he showed up on his own show as a panel discussion member

[jaichind]

After the collapse of the KMT-TPP unity talks, there is a real chance TPP Ko will get squeezed out in terms of resources and media coverage.  It seems many of the pan-Blue funding sources for TPP Ko dried up after the end of the KMT-TPP unity talks.

To keep the media attempting on himself without resources for TPP Ko dropped a bombshell in a radio interview where he said that during KMT-TPP talks "someone" offered him $200 million to take the VP spot.  He then inferred this "someone" most likely had KMT links.  When pressed more by the media to name this "someone" he backed off.  The pro-KMT and pro-DPP media are not letting this go since if true then this alleged action will be a major breach of election law.   It seems that TPP Ko most likely just made this up and is trying to dig himself out of this hole by trying to move on.

In the meantime, he did succeed in the short run by keeping media attention on himself although he risks his credibility if this ends up going nowhere and becomes just a wild accusation without details or evidence. 

[jaichind]

It seems both DPP VP candidate Hsiao and TPP VP candidate Wu refuses to debate KMT VP candidate Chao.  Chao was legendary in the 1990s as a debater and was at par with his main rival DPP mayor Chen who in turn went on to become DPP Prez Chen.

[Arson Plus]

https://twitter.com/kuomintang/status/1730053018136248468

What do Taiwanese think of him?

[jaichind]

As for legislative races:

a) Out of the 73 district seats: DPP+allies can be sure to win at least 33 of them with an outside chance of a surprise KMT flip in 1 or 2 of them.  KMT+allies can be sure to win at least 31 of them with an outside chance of a surprise DPP flip in 1 or 2 of them.  That leaves 9 tossups.

b) Aboringal seats: KMT+allies should win 4 while DPP+ allies should win 2

c) PR seats: Most likely KMT 14 DPP 13 TPP 7.  KMT may lose 1 seat to TPP.

This means it is

KMT+allies: 49
DPP+allies: 48
TPP:             7

with 9 district tossups.

I have KMT winning all 9 tossups on the premise that the TPP vote will lean toward KMT in these 9 races.  For a KMT-TPP bloc to win a solid majority they should target 60 out of 113 seats which means the KMT has to win at least 4 out of the 9 tossups.  So DPP+allies majority is very unlikely and can be ruled out but it is not a sure thing that KMT-TPP can win a stable majority.

[jaichind]

Pro-Ko youth heavy CNEWS poll on 新竹市(Hsinchu City) (Blue +4) legislative seat

KMT                 32.5 (incumbant)
pro-TPP Ind      19.7 (Ko's sister)
DPP                 19.5
NPP                  9.8

 

Back in 2020, it was

KMT                37.0
DPP                31.8
NPP                28.6
CPA                  2.0 (Light Blue KMT splinter, since merged back into KMT)

This district is fairly youth and tech-heavy and is trending away from KMT.  But just as I suspected, the non-KMT youth vote is split between DPP pro-TPP Ind. and NPP leaving the KMT incumbent to sweep the older voters.

Given the youth-heavy nature of this poll, I suspect the pro-TPP Independent (Ko's sister) is overestimated and the KMT vote share is underestimated (as well as DPP a bit as well).  This is a seat where there might be a surprise flip toward DPP due to the split of the non-DPP vote but by this poll, the KMT has this.

Party ID (not PR)

TPP         27.1
KMT        25.8
DPP         22.7
NPP           5.0
TSP           1.2


Given the youth-heavy nature of the poll, I think KMT is underestimated and TPP as well as NPP are overestimated.

[jaichind]

Two new polls but moving in different directions

Formosa Times

DPP Lai    37.1 (+0.8 )
KMT Hou  30.5 (-0.5)
TPP Ko     17.5 (-0.5)



Formisa Times always had a Deep Green lean.  It seems during the KMT-TPP unity talks various Deep Green voters who are overrepresented in this poll opted for KMT Hou thinking he is easier than TPP Ko to defeat in the election.   Once the KMT-TPP unity talks were over these eDeep Green voters shifted back to DPP Lai while pan-Blue TPP Ko voters shifted to KMT Hou.  

What Formosa Times now has is a lean Green version of the picture.  Back in 2020, the last Formosa Times poll had DPP Tsai with a 28-point lead over KMT Han with the final result being a DPP Tsai win of 19.5 point win.


Ettoday poll has KMT Hou closing the gap some more even as DPP gains ground in legislative polls.


DPP Lai     37.4 (+2.6)
KMT Hou   36.3 (+3.8 )
TPP Ko     19.6  (-1.6)

With a high level of partisan consolidation




The legislative race polls are

Generic district poll
DPP           33.2 (+4.3)
KMT          32.9 (-1.0)
TPP           13.3 (-0.5)



PR
KMT         33.1(-1.7)
DPP          32.9 (+4.1)
TPP          14.6 (-1.2)


At this stage, KMT Hou and DPP Lai are at the same relative level when compared to the PR vote polling of their party which means both have consolidated their support with their own party.

In 2020 the final Ettoday poll had DPP Tsai with a 20.3 lead which is pretty close to the final 19.5 win DPP Tsai won over KMT Han.

[jaichind]

DPP Lai's campaign manager is former NP MP 姚立明(Yao Li-ming)

Yao with Lai when his role was announced a month back.


Yao was recruited in the 1990s to join the Deep Blue radical unificationist NP by NP founder and now KMT VP candidate Chao and served a term as a NP MP back in the mid-1990s.  He fell out with a post-Chao NP leadership and by the early 2000s became a pro-Blue political commentator.  In 2006 he joined various DPP rebels in the anti-Chen protests which was the beginning of his turn toward the Green camp although he continued his role as a pro-Blue political commentator into the early 2010s.  In the 2012 election, he became frustrated with the KMT Ma administration and started to back PFP Soong but tactically shifted to endorse DPP Tsai as the best way to defeat Ma in 2012.

In 2014 he served as the pro-DPP Ko campaign manager in the Taipei mayor election and orchestrated a Ko landslide victory over the KMT.  He also helped project Ko as the leader of the 2014 DPP local election campaign overall and created a DPP wave victory in 2014 over the KMT.   After Ko became mayor of Taipei Yao's wife was given a job in the administration but after a year there was a blowup between Ko and Yao and Yao's wife left the Ko administration.  After that Yao, even if he most likely retained some of his original pro-unification ideas, became a pro-DPP anti-Ko political commentator.  

A couple of months ago DPP Lai figured his main opponent was going to be TPP Ko (it seems he was wrong) so he roped in Yao to be his campaign manager to help counter Ko.  So we now have DPP Lai's campaign manager who has a Deep Blue background and was brought into politics by KMT VP candidate Chao and served as Ko's election campaign manager.

[jaichind]

If a KMT supporter was told in 2005 that the 2024 election was Lai vs Hou vs Ko his reaction would be "So DPP banned the KMT in the future so the election has become an all-DPP affair" only to be shocked that Hou and Ko are running as pan-Blue candidates.

[jaichind]

If a KMT supporter was told in 2005 that the 2024 election was Lai vs Hou vs Ko his reaction would be "So DPP banned the KMT in the future so the election has become an all-DPP affair" only to be shocked that Hou and Ko are running as pan-Blue candidates.

An updated version would be if a KMT supporter (like me) in 2005 were given a ballot for 2024 which had

a) Mr. X  (campaign manager is 姚立明(Yao Li-ming))
b) Hou
c) Ko

Someone like me in 2005 would have said "I will vote for Mr. X !!" and then gotten a "womp womp" after I made my choice and the candidate names and party IDs were revealed.

[jaichind]

The main focus of the last few days has been on the two women VP candidates and their qualifications.

There are questions/concerns that TPP VP candidate Wu has not given up the USA or some other foreign citizenship.  The fact that Wu is not transparent about it is a problem.

DPP VP candidate Hsiao the problem is different.  There are concerns that she was not a natural-born ROC citizen and only gave up her USA citizenship and acquired ROC citizenship when she entered politics back in the early 2000s.    Just like the USA ROC election law says you have to be a natural-born ROC citizen to run for Prez or VP.  In the early 2000s, Hsiao was asked "Why do you not give up your USA citizenship ASAP?" she said "If I do so I will be without any citizenship" which implied that as of 2000 Hsiao had the USA but NOT ROC citizenship.  The question is did Hsiao not have ROC citizenship when she was born (which would be a problem) or did Hsiao have ROC citizenship but give it up later (which would be fine.)

I suspect that even if there are some fires here (there is clearly smoke) the ROC EC will most likely try to brush this stuff under the rug.  To disqualify 2 out of 3 tickets would be an election fiasco.

[jaichind]

DPP VP candidate Hsiao points out that she is wearing a jacket that was warn by DPP Prez Tsai and given to her by Tsai.   The implication is that Hsiao is the true successor of DPP Tsai.

[jaichind]

I have heard both DPP VP candidate Hsiao and TPP VP candidate Wu speak English in speeches.  Both speak American English perfectly.  KMT VP candidate Chao also speaks English reasonably well but clearly not at the same level as the other two.  The good news for KMT VP candidate Chao is that the VP debate, if there is one, will be in Chinese (Mandarian and Hoklo) and not English.

[jaichind]

After the collapse of the KMT-TPP unity talks, there is a real chance TPP Ko will get squeezed out in terms of resources and media coverage.  It seems many of the pan-Blue funding sources for TPP Ko dried up after the end of the KMT-TPP unity talks.

To keep the media attempting on himself without resources for TPP Ko dropped a bombshell in a radio interview where he said that during KMT-TPP talks "someone" offered him $200 million to take the VP spot.  He then inferred this "someone" most likely had KMT links.  When pressed more by the media to name this "someone" he backed off.  The pro-KMT and pro-DPP media are not letting this go since if true then this alleged action will be a major breach of election law.   It seems that TPP Ko most likely just made this up and is trying to dig himself out of this hole by trying to move on.

In the meantime, he did succeed in the short run by keeping media attention on himself although he risks his credibility if this ends up going nowhere and becomes just a wild accusation without details or evidence. 

It seems the ROC Prosecution Office (controlled by the DPP regime) is starting an investigation into Ko's statements in the context of possible PRC interference in this election.  Everyone, including the DPP, knows what Ko said was hogwash meant to get media attention for a few days.   I am not saying there is no PRC intervention in this election only that it is not the mumbo jumbo Ko was saying a few days back.  But the DPP is doing this to

a) Make Ko look bad
c) Find some way to work the PRC into the election to shift independent or light Green Ko youth voters over to DPP Lai