Every public opinion poll is “for reference only” and there is no need to panic, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday in response to a media poll which shows support for Tsai trailing President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is seeking re-election, by 2.95 percent.
Head to head, Ma led Tsai with 36.87 percent to 33.92 percent, with 29.21 percent of respondents undecided or opting not to answer, according to the poll conducted by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times sister newspaper) on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
If People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) enters the January presidential election and makes it a three-way race, Ma still leads Tsai with 31.46 percent of the vote compared with 28.23 percent for Tsai. Soong would receive 14.68 percent of the vote with 25.63 percent undecided or opting not to answer, the survey showed.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Ma increased his lead over Tsai from 2.1 percent in the previous Liberty Times poll.
The lastest poll showed that Ma enjoys a comfortable lead of more than 10 percent in the 20 to 29-year-old age bracket while Tsai leads Ma by more than 10 percent in the 30 to 39-year-old and 60 to 69-year-old age brackets.
The latest Liberty Times poll collected 1,424 samples and has a 2.6 percent margin of error.
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