A recent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) poll for the Sinbei City mayoral race showed DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) slightly ahead of her Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rival, Eric Chu (朱立倫).
The survey, taken in the middle of last week, gave Tsai a 43.5 percent support rate among voters in Taipei County — soon to be renamed Sinbei City — against 43.1 percent for Chu. While well within the margin of error, the numbers were still at odds with most other recent media surveys, which have given Chu a double-digit lead.
Dismissing the latest opposition party poll, Chu said that as long as his rival “felt a bit more secure,” he would congratulate her and “continue to work hard on my own campaign.”
Photo: CNA
A poll by the Chinese-language Apple Daily released on Monday last week showed Chu leading Tsai 48 percent against 35 percent. Meanwhile, the Chinese-language United Daily News claimed on Oct. 2 that Chu had 45 percent support to Tsai’s 28 percent.
In a press conference to explain the DPP survey, poll center director Chen Chun-lin (陳俊麟) said the newest numbers were consistent with the two previous polls conducted by the opposition party last month and in August. In both polls the difference was within 1 percent, he said.
On Tsai’s small lead, he said the candidate received more support from younger voters, with about 62 percent of voters between 20 and 29 expressing support for her -campaign. Chu, he said, received more votes from middle class voters, with 51.8 percent from the 40 to 49 age bracket supporting his campaign.
Rejecting claims that Chu had far surpassed Tsai in the number of election events held, the survey also pointed out that 20 percent of respondents said that they had seen Tsai hold an election event in their neighborhood. The number for Chu was 17 percent. The DPP survey polled 1,355 -voting-age respondents and had a margin of error of 2.7 percent.
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday visited Tsai at her campaign headquarters, saying he “especially supported” her and called on supporters to give the DPP candidate a chance. If everyone stood together, he said, the DPP would have a chance of winning all five mayoral seats in the Nov. 27 elections.
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