Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) remains the most popular candidate against possible Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rivals in November’s Taipei mayoral election, the results of a Taiwan Style Foundation poll released yesterday showed.
Asked to choose between Ko, former KMT legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) and DPP Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智), 44.2 percent of respondents said they would vote for Ko, 26.6 percent for Ting and 16.1 percent for Yao.
Ko’s lead grew further when Yao was replaced by former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) in the survey, with 46.9 percent saying they would vote for Ko, 28.1 percent for Ting and 11.6 percent for Lu.
About 69 percent of respondents said Ko has a different set of political views than the DPP, with 64.1 percent saying that the party should nominate its own candidate.
While 36.7 percent of respondents said they would support the DPP’s nomination of Yao, only 19.4 percent would support the party nominating Lu, the survey found.
While Ko retains the lead, DPP supporters have begun to shift their support to the party’s possible candidates, the DPP-affiliated foundation said.
“If support for the DPP returns and grows, a close three-way race between the DPP, KMT and Ko might ensue,” it said.
Asked about party preference, 27.1 percent of respondents said they supported the KMT, 19.7 percent supported the DPP and 9.1 percent preferred the New Power Party, while 37.6 percent said they were neutral.
The poll also gauged the opinions of DPP supporters on the mayoral election.
A total of 76.9 percent of DPP supporters said Ko had a different set of values than the party, with 78.8 percent saying that the party should nominate its own candidate.
While 66.5 percent of DPP supporters said they would support the nomination of Yao, only 24.9 percent said they would support the nomination of Lu.
Compared with opinion polls conducted by other agencies, the survey showed the highest support among DPP voters for Yao’s mayoral bid and for the party nominating its own candidate, the foundation said.
In a three-way race between Yao, Ko and Ting, the survey found that 50.5 percent of DPP supporters would vote for Yao and 31.5 percent for Ko.
If Yao is replaced with Lu, the poll found that 27.9 percent of DPP supporters would vote for her, with 41.8 percent voting for Ko.
The poll reflected an ongoing drop in support for Ko among DPP supporters and a rally by Yao, suggesting that the “Taiwanese values” incident has begun to influence DPP voters, the foundation said.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Jan. 22 said Ko should reaffirm his commitment to “Taiwanese values” so that DPP supporters “can feel that he is someone with whom we can fight together.”
Tsai’s comment likely sent a clear message to DPP supporters, the foundation said.
The poll, conducted on Thursday and Friday last week, collected 1,076 valid samples from Taipei residents and has a confidence level of 95 percent, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
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