2024 ROC Prez and Legislative elections Jan 13th

[Octowakandi]

Jaichind, you’re a PRC fan right? Do you see any particular problems between the two nations if Lai wins or has the DPP mostly made peace with the PRC?

[jaichind]

Jaichind, you’re a PRC fan right? Do you see any particular problems between the two nations if Lai wins or has the DPP mostly made peace with the PRC?

I think what any "risk" of a Lai win leading to war is most likely overestimated unless Lai tried to do something outside of what even the USA will allow.  In many ways having Hsiao running as Lai's VP is part of the way to assure the USA that Lai will not cross any USA red lines.  At this stage the DPP is more interested in milking political benefits from confrontation with PRC than anything real policy goals. 

At this stage the PRC does not really care who wins.   They have a plan for reunification and it will play out the next couple of decades regardless who wins.

[jaichind]

Two district polls.

Youth heavy with a Green lean CNEWS poll for Taoyuan 1st (Blue +2)

Back in 2020, it was
DPP                 46.1  (incumbent)
KMT                 43.1 (former incumbent)
TPP                   9.7 (lean Green background)

Poll
KMT                 35.2
DPP                 34.4 (incumbent)
pro-TPP Ind.       6.4 (have a lean Blue background)

Party support  - this clearly overestimates TPP and underestimates KMT
DPP                 29.7
KMT                25.3
TPP                 24.6
NPP                  2.0
TSP                  0.8

The TPP vote is split in favor of the KMT candidate which is key to his lead
KMT               38.0
DPP               20.6
pro-TPP Ind    18.8





Ettoday poll for Taichung 2nd

Back in 2020, it was a shock upset as part of the DPP wave
DPP backed TSP      51.2
KMT                       48.8 (incumbent and part of a powerful local pro-KMT faction)

The TSP was eventually recalled by the local pro-KMT faction machine leading to a by-election which the DPP won in 2022 against the old KMT incumbent
DPP                       51.8
KMT                       47.3 (former incumbent)

Poll
KMT                       43.5 (former incumbent)
DPP                        40.2 (incumbent)
JRP                          1.4 (radical unification)

The strong local factional background of the KMT former incumbent is a turnoff for the youth vote making this one of the seats where I think the TPP vote might be more evenly split between the KMT and DPP candidates making this a close race.



If you take these polls at face value the KMT are ahead in seats where they should be ahead to deny a DPP majority.  However, the smallness of those leads indicates that the KMT+ allies are unlikely to win a majority, leading to TPP holding the balance of power.

[jaichind]

DPP Prez Tsai shows off news weapon to be used against the PRC in case of invasion at a DPP rally

[Frodo]

Thanks to China's crackdown on Hong Kong, not even the Kuomintang wants to be regarded as too overly cozy with the mainland Communist regime:

China Confronts a New Political Reality in Taiwan: No Friends

[jaichind]

PFP leader Soong (who ran in 2000 2012 2016 and 2020) endorsed KMT Hou at a campaign event for the KMT MP candidate for Taipei 4th.  The KMT MP candidate is the former MP here and is running to regain her seat.  Her husband is a former NP MLA who was close to Soong at a personal level ergo he came to campaign for her.  It seems the KMT Hou camp arranged for KMT Hou to be there as well for PFP leader Soong to endorse KMT Hou.

At this stage, PFP will run a PR list and I expect to get something like 0.7% of the vote.  Most of the old PFP Soong vote has already gone to KMT Hou or TPP Ko.  I figure this endorsement is worth around 0.5% of the vote.  Nice to have but not decisive.  Getting Guo to come out for KMT Hou in the last couple of weeks is more critical.

[jaichind]

Thanks to China's crackdown on Hong Kong, not even the Kuomintang wants to be regarded as too overly cozy with the mainland Communist regime:

China Confronts a New Political Reality in Taiwan: No Friends

I think that has been true since the early 2000s: KMT being for One China but anti-PRC but DPP saying that One China is pro-PRC. 

The HK protests of 2019 meant a pro-DPP youth wave in 2020 but that has mostly abated and the youth vote is now going to TPP Ko whose motto is now a dovish "Mainland China and Taiwan are one family"   The angry youth vote is more about economic issues and less about PRC this election but I agree can change in future elections if DPP can tie poor economic prospects of ROC youth to the PRC.

[jaichind]

Latest Ettoday poll - TPP Ko surges leading to DPP Lai's lead narrowing against KMT Hou.  

A lot of this I suspect is a regression to the mean but does mean that TPP Ko's floor is a solid 20%.  Overall that is good news for DPP Lai whose ceiling seems to be 40%-41%

DPP Lai       36.6 (-1.5)
KMT Hou     33.8 (-1.0)
TPP Ko        22.2 (+3.0)



TPP Ko surge seems to be mostly about gaining with independents

[jaichind]

DPP renegade TPOF poll - This poll has been fairly youth/cell heavy plus a Green lean.  This time their results are converging with other mainstream polls (change from Nov)

DPP Lai         32.4 (+3.2)
KMT Hou       28.2 (+4.6)
TPP Ko          24.6 (-7.3)


The numbers overall seem similar to what it was back in April 2023 before the TPP Ko surge



Party support - looks similar to other mainstream polls as their absurd Nov results roll-off
KMT         28.5 (+3.7)
DPP          28.3 (+3.8 )
TPP          18.2 (-7.1)
NPP           4.1 (+1.2)
TSP           1.5 (+0.5)


Their generic legislative vote has KMT with a small edge
KMT        31.5
DPP         28.7
TPP           6.9


PR vote
KMT       31.5
DPP       28.9
TPP        18.6
NPP         1.9

[jaichind]

CNEWS Hsinchu City at large (Blue +4) poll.  This poll is fairly youth/cell-heavy and has a heavy TPP lean

2020 it was
KMT        37.0
DPP        31.8
NPP        28.6
CPA          2.0 (Light Blue KMT splinter, later de facto merged back into KMT)

Poll

The level of support for TPP seems too high and KMT too low.  KMT incumbent is ahead despite the party ID being out of wack due to the DPP candidate getting none of the TPP vote.

I expect the KMT incumbent to get a comfortable win.

KMT        31.5 (incumbent)
DPP         27.9
pro-TPP    19.9 (Ko's sister)
NPP           7.8

Party support
DPP        30.8
KMT        27.8
NPP        27.5
NPP          4.3

TPP voters
pro-TPP   61.3
KMT        17.0
NPP          7.6
DPP          2.7

[jaichind]

8 fairly large ROC high schools organized mock voting.   Almost 3000  high school students were eligible to vote.    Turnout was only 20%

Prez
TPP Ko      59%
DPP Lai     26%
KMT Hou   15%

PR vote
TPP          44%
DPP          16%
KMT         14%
NPP            7%
TOPEP        6% (Feminist)

Good news for TPP Ko on how strong his youth support is.  The bad news for TPP Ko and the good news for KMT Hou is how low the turnout was compared to a similar mock vote in 2020.  The fact that the PR vote skewed very much toward small minor parties shows that only those who are the most politically active and aware bothered to vote.    The not-so-good news for DPP Lai is that in this small sample TPP Ko seems to be able to split the Light Green PR vote (NPP and TOPEP) with DPP Lai.

[jaichind]

TVBS poll - DPP Lai regains ground from TPP Ko and expands his lead to 4 (change from a week ago)

DPP Lai        37 (+4)
KMT Hou      33 (+1)
TPP Ko         22 (-2)



DPP Lai's gains from TPP Ko seem to be with young educated women

PR vote - TPP loses some ground
KMT           33 (+1)
DPP           30 (--)
TPP            16 (-2)
NPP             4 (--)

I suspect last week's sample was too lean TPP and this week is more reversion to the mean.

[jaichind]

Ettoday poll on Pingdong 2nd district(Green +10)

Back in 2020, it was
DPP backed independent        47.0  (incumbent redistricted from defuncted Pingdong 3rd)
KMT                                     39.7
NPP backed independent         8.4
DPP rebel                               3.1

DPP incumbent was charged with corruption so he had to run as a DPP-backed independent and won.  The DPP incumbent is more aligned with the DPP Prez Tsai faction and DPP Lai excluded backing him in 2024.    As a result, he had his son run as an independent with backing from some local KMT factions

Poll
DPP                             33.7
KMT-backed DPP rebel   23.9 (son of DPP-backed independent winner from 2020) 
PUP                               3.2 (nominally DPP light Green splinter but running on a Pan-Blue platform)

The DPP vote mostly consolidated breaking 9-1 for the DPP candidate over the DPP rebel.  But a large part of the KMT and TPP vote are undecided so a KMT-TPP consolidation behind the DPP rebel plus some of the DPP vote would make this a very close race.

[jaichind]

https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202312270020

"New Taipei middle school student stabbed by schoolmate dies"

This is heating up as an election issue.

DPP talking point: This took place in New Taipei city.  KMT Hou is the mayor so he has to take responsibility for this

KMT and TPP talking point:  The Department of Education, after DPP took power in 2016, came up with new guidelines which made it impossible for schools to search book bags for students which made it impossible for teachers who might have been suspicious of students having weapons (in this case a knife) to be able to act on their suspicions.

The KMT is hammering DPP PR MP 范雲(Fan Yun) who was a student activist in the late 1980s and has been a strong advocate of student rights to privacy (as well as a fairly well-known feminist)which has led to this set of policies on searches of student bookbags.

Fun fact:  范雲(Fan Yun) is fairly close to the pro-DPP parts of my extended family whom I am sure have donated to her multiple campaigns over the years.  She is fairly close to my cousin.  She attended Yale U as a graduate student in the late 1990s with her boyfriend at the same time my cousin was an undergraduate there.  I got to meet and talk to her a few times when I visited my cousin in college.   Her parents are actually fairly Deep Blue.

I do not know what ever happened to her boyfriend but she never married.  But this fits with the pattern of women politicians on ROC.  If a woman politician is in politics due to her father or husband the chances of her being married are quite high.  If a woman politician is in politics on her own (like Fan was) then the chance of her being married is around 5% and the chances of her having children is 0%.

[jaichind]

On Jan 3rd there will be a poll blackout.  What the polls look like after this weekend's debate and before the poll blackout will be critical for tactical voting.

The experience of 2000 when it was a 3 way race was quite dramatic.   In 2000 it was DPP Chen vs KMT Lien and KMT rebel and proto PFP Soong.
At first PFP Soong was well ahead but 2 months before the election the KMT campaign produced some evidence of proto-PFP Soong corruption which made it a close 3 way race.

Back in 2000 the Blue/Green split was around 60/40 so in theory DPP Chen should have the edge.  But there were 2 key factors that made the race close.
a) KMT Prez Lee had significant Pan-Green appeal and it was expected that he will be able to transfer some of his personal pan-Green vote over to KMT Lien 
b) Proto-PFP Soong made a lot of connections with various local factions when he was Governor of Taiwan Province.  Many of these local rural factions was trending DPP but it was expected that Soong would be able to pull some of these local faction vote over to his side.

Because of a) and b) it was expected that DPP Chen could be driven down to the low 30s from the theoretical Pan-Green base of 35-40.

The polls in the last week before the election sort of reflected that.  If you look at polls for the week before the poll blackout of date of  3/7 you get

                                Mean    Median
DPP Chen                   23.4        22.4
Proto-PFP Soong         23.6        22.6
KMT Lien                    23.5        23.4

which implied that the election result would be close to 33/33/33.



But after the poll blackout, some pro-Lee but lean Green personalities came out to endorse DPP Chen.  It was not clear if that actually shifted support from KMT Lien to DPP Chen, but due to the poll blackout one could not verify how much support shifted to DPP Chen.  In reaction some of the core Deep Blue KMT vote shifted to Proto-PFP Soong which in turn trigged more defections from the Light Green flank of KMT Lien to DPP Chen. With the final result being

DPP Chen              39
Proto-PFP Soong    37
KMT Lien               23

I suspect this time around the KMT might take action to provoke TPP->KMT tactical voting after the poll blackout.  The most obvious one would be for TPP Ko former ally Guo to endorse KMT and KMT Hou in the last week of the election.  If enough TPP voters and fence sitters believe that such a shift was taking place it will trigger more of such shifts.  Of course for this KMT to be critical they have
a) KMT Hou to be very close to DPP Lai
b) KMT Hou to be well ahead of TPP Ko

[jaichind]

Another debate took place.  This one is more watched because the candidate gets to question each other.  It mostly went as expected.  Some things that were not as expected

a) TPP Ko seems to be sick and keeps on coughing.   He coughed the most when he had to answer difficult questions like his "illegal" parking lot.   He even shed a tear as well which drew a comparison to DPP Lai's bouts of crying over the last few weeks when talking about his "illegal" house.

b) The Ukraine war situation has pressed both DPP Lai and TPP Ko to go over to the dovish side in a complete reversal of the situation in 2020 when the DPP was much more hawkish.  DPP Lai being a radical on this issue gives him less room to maneuver then DPP Prez Tsai who has a Light Blue background.  The diaster that is Ukraine and the USA entangled in the Middle East also adds to the dovish sentiment.
   1) DPP Lai says he accepts the ROC Constitution (which is a One China Constitution) and that he defines "Taiwan Independence" as Taiwan having free direct elections for its leader which rules out any Constitutional changes
   2) TPP Ko said that the ROC Constitution says that Mainland China is a part of the ROC and he accepts that.  This is a de facto acceptance of the "92 Consensus" and "One China Principle" since "Two Chinas" with near identical territorial claims sounds a lot like "One China"
  3) KMT Hou defended the "92 Consensus" saying that it is not the same thing as "One Country, Two Systems" which the PRC is for and he is against.  This is the first time since 2012 that the KMT candidate has come out in the open defending "92 Consensus".  Back in 2016 and 2020, the KMT was for "92 Consensus" but tried to dodge questions about it.

[jaichind]

After being dormant this entire election campaign, the KMT internet army finally came to life to attack DPP MP 范雲(Fan Yun) over her position on student right to privacy and the middle school student stabbing death.  It seems the TPP internet army, which is vast, also joined in.  They pretty much overwhelmed the Youtube and Facebook sites of pro-DPP and DPP actors (like DPP Prez Tsai herself).

The good news for DPP Lai is that 范雲(Fan Yun)  is more aligned with DPP Prez Tsai so the damage to his standing is limited.  But 范雲(Fan Yun) is 7th on the DPP PR list so the DPP PR vote is expected to suffer to the benefit of TPP NPP and TSP.

[jaichind]

TVBS post-debate poll - DPP Lai and KMT Hou both lose ground to TPP Ko

DPP Lai      33 (-4)
KMT Hou    30 (-3)
TPP Ko       24 (+2)


Who did the best in the debate?
DPP Lai      33
KMT Hou    24
TPP Ko       24

[jaichind]

Post-debate Ettoday poll - all 3 candidates lose ground.  DPP Lai's lead narrows to 2%

DPP Lai     35.4 (-1.2)
KMT Hou   33.4 (-0.4)
TPP Ko      22.1 (-0.1)


DPP Lai losing a bit of ground with middle-aged independents to undecided


When asked if it is clear at the end of the campaign that only DPP Lai and KMT Hou have a chance of winning then the tactical shift favors KMT Hou
KMT Hou      36.4 (+3.0 tactical gain)
DPP Lai        35.8  (+0.4 tactical gain)
TPP Ko         19.5 (-2.6 tactical loss)
This shows that around 1% of the undecided vote are KMT Hou-TPP Ko tactical voters waiting to figure out who to vote for to defeat DPP Lai.

[jaichind]

The current wiki-normalized polling curve has it at around
DPP Lai   40.5
KMT Hou 37.5
TPP Ko    22.0

I think DPP Lai is en route to around a 2% victory which would be something like
DPP Lai   40
KMT Hou 38
TPP Ko    22

What can change this is if Guo comes out to back KMT Hou a few days before the election.  That act will signal to all KMT-TPP marginal voters as well as Guo supporters that KMT Hou is in a unique position to beat DPP Lai and the surge of TPP->KMT tactical voting which would turn the election into
KMT Hou 43
DPP Lai   41
TPP Ko    16

BTW, if Guo does come out to endorse KMT Hou it would make sense to do it in the last week before the election.  Not just because you want the impact to be the greatest before the election but it will be in the poll blackout period so the TPP Ko camp cannot release polls showing that his support is intact.  The very perception of KMT-TPP voters that KMT Hou is now in a unique position to win will trigger tactical voting especially when there are no polls that can be published to counteract that narrative.

During the final debate, KMT Hou pretty much spent a bunch of time defending TPP Ko against DPP Lai's attacks and there were several cases of KMT Hou and TPP Ko jointly attacking DPP Lai.

A good proxy for the tactical voting would be if TPP Ko is running ahead or behind the TPP PR vote.  If TPP Ko runs behind the TPP PR vote then I would say KMT Hou most likely has won the election.  This is because it is clear TPP Ko will get some light Green PR voters (NPP, TOPEP, GPT).  So if TPP Ko runs behind the TPP PR vote then it is clear that KMT Hou won the battle with TPP Ko over how to divide up KMT PR and TPP PR marginal swing voters.  

[jaichind]

Deep Green 三立(Sanli) came out with their post-debate poll.  DPP Lai lost ground and his lead was cut to 3% mostly due to the loss of support to TPP Ko.  This cycle their numbers seem reasonable given this historical wild pro-DPP lean although the shift in support also seems to imply this poll is meant to discourage TPP->KMT tactical voting.  Change from 2 weeks ago


DPP Lai      30.9 (-3.8 )
KMT Hou    27.9 (-0.9)
TPP Ko       23.8 (+2.6)




No gender gap between DPP Lai and KMT Hou but TPP Ko is weak with women.  The larger undecided with women is expected and all things equal imply the undecided should lean Blue.  The main message by age seems to be that KMT Hou is in a tie with DPP Lai with the youth vote and DPP Lai's lead over KMT Hou is more about older voters.  Most other polls show that high turnout (higher youth turnout) should favor TPP Ko the most but still help DPP Lai over KMT Hou but this poll shows the opposite.




Regional breakdown.  TPP Ko is very strong in rural East which looks a bit fishy.  DPP Lai is stronger than expected in the North and weaker than expected in the bellwether Center which adds up to a DPP Lai lead.




Party ID (not PR vote) - DPP loses ground to TPP
KMT     30.1 (-0.3)
DPP      26.6 (-2.5)
TPP      23.3(+2.5)
NPP        2.0 (-0.5)
TSP        1.5 (+0.2)





Generic Legislative ballot - KMT and DPP both lose ground but KMT keeps its large lead.  TPP not running in most seats so how the TPP vote breaks down will be critical
KMT      35.2 (-2.5)
DPP      26.6 (-2.1)
TPP        9.6 (+1.1)  





PR vote - DPP loses ground to TPP but KMT also gains
KMT      33.1 (+0.8 )
DPP       26.4 (-2.1)
TPP       20.1 (+2.2)  
NPP        3.2 (-0.3)
TSP         1.4 (-0.3)






PR vote by party ID.  DPP loses more ground than KMT based on party ID due to DPP's defection to NPP and TSP on the PR ballot.  TPP voters defecting in large numbers to KMT on the PR ballot.  

This pattern of defections by TPP voters does not make sense from a game theory point of view.  It would make sense for TPP voters to vote for TPP PR since there is marginal value in terms of PR seats for TPP.  It makes less sense for TPP voters to not defect to KMT Hou unless TPP voters believe that TPP Ko is in 2nd place.  But in that case, why bother defecting to KMT PR then?

But overall this poll has the same pattern as others.  KMT Hou is running behind the KMT legislative ballot and KMT PR ballot and the reverse is true for DPP Lai and TPP Ko relative to their parties.  This is a crisis and opportunity for KMT Hou in the last 2 weeks of the election.

[jaichind]

Youth and Pan-Green heavy RWNews poll also had DPP Lai losing ground to TPP Ko leading his lead over KMT Hou narrow to 4%.  Change from Nov.

Just like Deep Green 三立(Sanli) poll, convergence toward other mainstream polls (TVBS, Ettoday)

DPP Lai       36.89 (-4.33)
KMT Hou     32.83 (+1.78)
TPP Ko        28.64 (+3.33)





KMT Hou is stronger with older voters, especially older women.  KMT Hou is weak with younger voters, especially younger women.    TPP Ko has the same pattern of very strong with youth and very weak with older voters but this poll has no gender gap for TPP Ko.




61.62% want talks/interface with PRC, the highest since May 2023
Chances of conflict with the PRC within the next 3 years
No chance         53.10 (highest since May 2023)  
Some chance     41.18

[jaichind]

VP Debate.  Overall KMT Chao won in points and style but he had a clear natural advantage over his rivals.  In many ways, he pulled a lot of punches due to the poor optics of a man beating up on two women.

Overall KMT Chao and DPP Hsiao mostly attacked each other as their main rival which caused awkward moments when both were clearly asking questions of each other but TPP Wu was asked to respond which made her answers fairly unstructured since the questions were not posed to her.

Overall KMT Chao made some minor gains but DPP Hsaio avoided losses.  Expectations were very low for TPP Wu so I do not think she lost anything for the TPP Ko campaign either.

[jaichind]

Final TVBS poll after VP debate - TPP Ko loses two points while DPP Lai and KMT Hou are unchanged

DPP Lai        33 (---)
KMT Hou      30 (---)
TPP Ko         22 (-2)

[jaichind]

The poor man version of 538 on ROC 無情真實的未來預測 (Brutally Realistic Future Predictions) has its current projection at

DPP Lai     40  (57% chance of winning)
KMT Hou   38  (43% chance of winning)
TPP Ko      22  (<1% chance of winning)

Which is the same as my current projection.  I think the difference between myself and this site is it takes into account some TPP->KMT tactical voting and regional calibration of the various polls while I do not and based on my projection of a DPP Lai lead over KMT Hou of 2%, when the average of polls is more like 3.5%-4.0%, on the undecided are more likely to lean Blue.


For legislative election, they have it at a bare KMT majority
KMT      57  (54-58)
DPP      46   (45-49)
TPP        8
Ind.       2 (both pro-KMT)

Which is broken down as

District:  KMT 40 DPP 32 pro-KMT Ind. 1
Abogrine: KMT 3 DPP 2 pro-KMT Ind. 1
PR: KMT 14 DPP 12 TPP 8

Which is nearly identical to my current projection.  The only difference between myself and this site is  I have the PR seats at KMT 14 DPP 13 TPP 7.  

Also for district seats even though my seat count is identical to this site, we disagree on 4 seats.  I have 2 seats for KMT which has them for DPP and there are 2 seats which is the other way around.  All in all this site is very PVI-centric in its approach whereas I tend to be more candidate quality-centric which explains the 4 seats where we differ.  To be fair the site and I called Taoyuan 6th and Penghu County at large for KMT which is not CW and more based on a PVI so there are cases I choose to be PVI-centric.