Support for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) has declined sharply, with a recent poll showing that she was backed by only 13.9 percent of respondents.
The poll, released on Friday by the Taiwan Indicators Survey Research, showed that — after People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) joined the race on Aug. 6 — Hung’s support rate has dropped by 5 percentage points compared with another poll conducted by the research group last month.
The latest poll showed Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) remained in the lead with 37.1 percent support, while Soong had 20.5 percent.
The poll showed that support for Soong among pan-blue respondents has increased, while support from the pan-green camp had dropped from 21.6 percent in the previous poll to 20.5 percent.
The latest poll showed pan-green supporters have flocked back to Tsai, boosting her support from 35.9 percent to 37.1 percent, marginally increasing her lead over Soong.
Support for Hung fell from 18.9 percent previously to 13.9 percent, with pan-blue respondents shifting to undecided, the poll said.
Soong polled significantly higher than other candidates for political and government experience, the poll showed, with 50 percent of respondents favoring the PFP candidate, compared with 25 percent for Tsai and 8 percent for Hung.
Tsai led in overall support in every demographic, including age, region, education and other categories, the results showed.
By age group, Tsai was the most popular candidate among voters aged 20 to 29 (47 percent), the survey showed. By region, Tsai led the race, even in the Taoyuan-Hsinchu-Miaoli region, where the DPP has not traditionally been successful, with 27 percent support, closely followed by Soong’s 23 percent and Hung’s 22 percent, the survey showed.
In cross-strait relations, the survey showed that 39.2 percent of respondents expressed confidence that Tsai could protect Taiwan’s sovereignty and national interests while keeping the peace. Soong followed with a confidence rating of 25.3 percent, while Hung had 13.7 percent, it showed.
The survey was conducted from Monday to Wednesday with a sample size of 1,001 and a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
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