Former New Taipei City deputy mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) have the highest favorability ratings among major political figures and candidates running in the Nov. 24 nine-in-one elections, a poll released yesterday by the Taiwan Brain Trust showed.
The poll surveyed eligible voters in the six special municipalities to gauge the approval and favorability ratings of political figures and candidates.
As the municipalities’ residents account for about 70 percent of the nation’s population, the poll also gauged the approval ratings of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Premier William Lai (賴清德).
Photo: CNA
According to the poll, 56.5 percent of respondents disapproved of Tsai’s performance, while 28.8 percent approved.
Lai had an approval rating of 39.3 percent and a disapproval rating of 39 percent, the survey found.
Respondents were given a list of 18 major political figures and mayoral candidates, and were asked to select who they favored. They were allowed to choose multiple names.
Hou was the only figure favored by more than half of respondents, with a favorability rating of 50.2 percent.
He was closely followed by Ko (48.5 percent), Lai (47.9 percent), Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) (43.8 percent) and New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) (43.5 percent).
Tsai, who is the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson, ranked eighth with a favorability rating of 35.6 percent, while Chinese Nationalist Part (KMT) Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) ranked 15th with a favorability rating of 18.6 percent.
Ko had the highest support rate in each of the four scenarios presented to the respondents for the Taipei mayoral election: running against KMT candidate Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) with no DPP candidate; running against Ting and DPP Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智); against Ting and Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Chu (陳菊), and against Ting and Lai.
Even though some DPP politicians have criticized Ko, and his favorability rating has fallen to 43.3 percent in Taipei, he still received higher support rates — ranging from 44.3 to 53.4 percent — in the other five municipalities, Trend Survey and Research Co general manager Wu Shih-chang (吳世昌) said.
If Ko were to run for president in 2020 and received only 5 percent of the vote, it could still result in Tsai losing the election, he said.
People aged 20 to 39 view Ko most favorably, those 40 to 59 years old prefer Hou, and people older than 60 favor Lai, Wu said.
“Ko has a high support rate and can attract voters from the pan-blue and pan-green camps, as well as neutral voters and even New Power Party (NPP) supporters,” Ketagalan Institute president Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒) said, adding that the DPP faces a challenge in party politics, as its supporters seem less passionate about and alienated from the party.
Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) has the highest approval rating among mayors at 77.5 percent, followed by Lin in Taichung (55.7 percent), who rose to No. 2 after Chen last month left her post as Kaohsiung mayor. Chen ranked No. 2 in the previous poll released in December last year.
The poll was conducted between Monday and Thursday last week through telephone interviews and a stratified proportional sampling of 4,891 adult residents of the six municipalities. It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 1.4 percent.
Chen meanwhile yesterday denied that she would run for Taipei mayor, after she was viewed by many DPP supporters as a strong candidate, adding that her duty is to assist the president in pushing forward reforms.
NPP Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) yesterday said in a radio interview that he would also not run for Taipei mayor, because he does not want to split the pro-local and progressive vote, adding that he would not seek an alliance with Ko either.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS