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Su Chen-chang leads Taipei County race

While the opposition camp is still squabbling over who should represent it in the year-end election for Taipei County chief, an opinion poll found that incumbent Taipei County Commissioner Su Chen-chang (蘇貞昌) outshines any possible opposition hopefuls.

A telephone poll of 938 eligible Taipei County voters conducted by a Chinese-language paper on Sunday found that 33 percent of the respondents voiced their support for Su's re-election bid.

The poll results released yesterday show that the KMT's Lin Jih-jia (林志嘉) and the New Party's Wang Chien-hsien (王建火宣) each received the support of 12 percent of those surveyed. People First Party candidate Chin Chin-sheng (秦金生) received 5 percent.

According to the poll, 38 percent of Taipei County voters have not yet decided whom they will vote for in the year-end election.

Asked about their party affiliation, 19 percent said they support the DPP; 18 percent said they support the PFP; 15 percent said they back the KMT; 4 percent said they are New Party supporters; and 44 percent said they were undecided.

An analysis of poll results shows that as the PFP announced its candidate only on Thursday, its supporters remain divided over whom to support.

Only 23 PFP supporters said they would vote for the party's nominee, while 25 percent said they prefer to back the New Party candidate; 14 percent said they would support Commissioner Su; 12 percent said they would support the KMT's Lin; and 26 percent said they have not yet made a decision.

Among KMT supporters, 34 percent remain undecided; 31 percent said they support the party's standard-bearer Lin; 18 percent said they prefer to back the DPP's Su; 15 percent support the New Party's Wang; and only 1 percent gave a thumbs-up to the PFP's Chin.

In contrast, the poll found that although the number of New Party supporters is limited, they unanimously support Wang. DPP supporters are also very united, demonstrating almost unanimous support for Su's re-election bid, according to the survey.

Of those surveyed who have no special party affiliation, 30 percent voiced their support for the sitting commissioner, while none of the three other hopefuls could secure a support rate of more than 10 percent.

If the year-end election turns out to be a three-way race between Su, Lin, and Chin, the survey results show that Su would still enjoy a large lead over his KMT and PFP competitors. In that scenario, 38 percent said they would vote for Su, 17 percent said they would back Lin and 12 percent said they would cast their ballots for Chin.

Even if the three opposition parties fielded a common candidate, the poll found that no possible standard-bearer could compete with Su.

In this scenario, Wang would be Su's closest competitor, gaining 30 percent of the vote to Su's 48 percent. In a race between Su and Lin, Su would grab 45 percent of the vote to Lin's 26 percent, while in a Su-Chin race, the result would be 53 percent to 20 percent in favor of Su.

The newspaper poll also found that 74 percent of the opposition camp supporters look forward to seeing the three opposition parties jointly fielding a common candidate, while only 21 percent said they hope to see each party nominate its own candidate.

Meanwhile, 76 percent of opposition camp supporters gave a thumbs-up to the proposal that a public opinion poll be held to decide a representative of the opposition camp in the year-end race for the Taipei County Government's top post, while 19 percent said they oppose such a proposal.
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