Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) approval rating was leading that of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) by 3.56 percentage points, according to a poll released by the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) on Friday.
The BCC-commissioned poll came after Tsai and Su faced off in televised policy sessions that are seen as a major indicator of whether they can sway voters before official nomination polls are held starting on April 25.
The poll was conducted on Tuesday and Thursday, while the second policy session was held on Wednesday.
The poll showed that Su scored an approval rating of 31.94 percent against Tsai’s 28.38 percent. The third contender, former DPP chairman Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良), received 6 percent.
PULLING ADEAD
The survey suggested that Su has benefited somewhat from his performance in the sessions, with support climbing about 7 percentage points against Tsai since the last BCC survey on April 4, when he was down by 3.5 percentage points.
A further breakdown of the latest poll suggested Su received an approval rating of 28.66 percent in the north of the country, while Tsai garnered 27.63 percent. In central Taiwan it was 31 percent for Su against Tsai’s 27.7 percent and in the south it showed 37.61 percent for Su against Tsai’s 30.11 percent.
The poll questioned 1,120 people, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.99 percentage points.
Asked about the increase after the third policy session yesterday afternoon, Su said he took every poll “very importantly and seriously.”
IMPROVEMENT
“I still have many areas I need to improve on. The most important thing is winning Taiwanese support and winning the 2012 presidential elections,” Su said.
However, Tsai sought to downplay the implications of the poll, saying that they rise and fall depending on who conducts the survey.
“It’s just used as a reference,” she said. “We have seen polls fluctuate from time to time.”
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