A poll released yesterday showed that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) continues to lead in the presidential race.
Tsai leads with 48.1 percent support, while Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) is in a distant second place with 16.3 percent support and People First Party (PFP) presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) has 10.4 percent support, according to the poll, which was commissioned by Taiwan Thinktank and conducted by Trend Survey and Research.
The results suggest that Chu’s replacement of Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) as the KMT’s presidential candidate has had little effect on the race, and that Tsai has maintained her hefty lead.
Voters appeared to strongly disapprove of Chu’s decision to run in the presidential election without first resigning from his post as New Taipei City mayor, as the poll showed that 63.5 percent of respondents said that Chu should quit as mayor, and 24.3 percent said he should not.
However, the poll also showed that 47.2 percent of respondents said that Chu’s candidacy would help the KMT in the legislative elections, while 40.1 percent said it would not.
The poll showed that if Soong were to drop out of the presidential campaign, Tsai’s support would increase to 50.9 percent, while Chu’s support would increase to 20 percent.
A cross-analysis of the polling results to investigate the “dump-save” effect for the Jan. 16 vote suggested that the effect is weaker for next year’s election than its historic norm.
The poll showed that if voters are convinced the candidate they support has no chance of winning, 34.3 percent said that they would forgo voting altogether, and 47 percent said they would vote for the candidate they favored anyway.
The poll showed that 69.3 percent of respondents supported legislative candidates who supported changing the law to regulate party assets, while 16.4 percent disapproved.
“In next year’s elections, the pan-green camp is highly likely to gain a majority in the legislature, and dealing with the KMT’s assets by passing a draft political party act would become an important issue,” said Steve Wang (王思為), an assistant professor at Nanhua University’s Institute of European Studies.
The poll also showed that DPP legislative candidates have the highest support rate at 35 percent, while their KMT counterparts trailed with 19 percent. Among third-party candidates, the New Power Party commanded the most support with 4 percent, followed by the PFP’s 2.4 percent approval, independent candidates’ 2 percent, Taiwan Solidarity Union’s 1 percent and the Green Party-Social Democratic Party Alliance’s 0.9 percent, the poll showed.
Republic Party candidates had a 0.8 percent approval rate, while the New Party and Free Taiwan Party both had a 0.1 percent approval, the poll showed.
The poll collected 1,071 effective samples from people aged 20 or older and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
UNITED: The other candidates congratulated Cheng on her win, saying they hoped the new chair could bring the party to victory in the elections next year and in 2028 Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday won the party’s chair election with 65,122 votes, or 50.15 percent of the votes. It was the first time Cheng, 55, ran for the top KMT post, and she is the second woman to hold the post of chair, following Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), who served from 2016 to 2017. Cheng is to succeed incumbent Eric Chu (朱立倫) on Nov. 1 for a four-year term. Cheng said she has spoken with the other five candidates and pledged to maintain party unity, adding that the party would aim to win the elections next year and
RSS