Another poll yesterday gave presidential hopeful Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) a slight lead over Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), but remained inconclusive as to who would be the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) final nominee.
The Taiwan Brain Trust survey, the second poll on DPP candidates to come out this week, showed that both would beat President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) if the elections were held today.
The numbers were at odds with what some other polls have suggested in the past few days.
Conducted on March 30, the Taiwan Brain Trust poll showed that Tsai would take 40.7 percent of the vote against 36.7 percent for Ma. Su would take 37.7 percent against Ma’s 31.7 percent.
While the survey shows that Su would lead Ma by a wider margin at 6 percentage points versus Tsai’s 4 percentage points, the DPP’s nomination guidelines state that the candidate with greater support would take the nomination.
The Taiwan Brain Trust numbers suggest that Tsai commanded more support among undecided voters, with 33.5 percent against Ma’s 20.4 percent, while Su would only take 25.4 percent against Ma’s 16.7 percent.
On Monday, a Broadcasting Corporation of China-commissioned poll showed Tsai and Su nearly tied, with both losing slightly to Ma.
Another DPP presidential hopeful, Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良), was not included in the Taiwan Brain Trust survey, although he has attempted to increase his media exposure as of late.
Yesterday, he met former -Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興), who quit the party last year over a nominations furor.
Yang gave Hsu his support and said he saw eye-to-eye with some of the former DPP chairman’s cross-strait ideas.
“Once I heard Hsu announce his participation in the primary, I organized a meeting because I recognize his policies,” Yang said.
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