Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) remains the most favored candidate in next year’s presidential election, with a lead of at least 4.7 percentage points over President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Hon Hai Precision Industry chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), a poll released yesterday by the Green Party Taiwan found.
It is the first poll on next year’s presidential election conducted via cellphone interviews and is expected to provide a more accurate sampling of the younger generations’ opinions, Green Party Taiwan Taoyuan City Councilor Wang Hao-yu (王浩宇) said.
When asked who they hope would become the next president without being offered any choices, 18.7 percent of respondents said Han, the poll found.
Photo: CNA
He was followed by Tsai of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) at 14 percent, Gou at 11.9 percent, former premier William Lai (蔡清德) of the DPP at 10.1 percent and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), an independent, at 9.5 percent.
Gou on Wednesday announced that he would take part in the KMT’s presidential primary.
At the bottom of the list were former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) of the KMT and KMT Legislator Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), at 1.8 percent and 0.3 percent respectively.
Han also received the highest support among KMT candidates, the poll showed.
When asked to choose between Han and the KMT primary candidates, 31.2 percent said Han, 28.1 percent chose Gou, 16 percent picked Wang and 12.2 percent preferred Chu.
When asked to choose between Tsai and Han, 47.1 percent said Han, while 42.2 percent said Tsai.
Han’s lead increased by 1.1 percentage points when respondents were asked to choose between him and Lai, with 47.5 supporting Han, compared with 41.3 percent for Lai.
The KMT would still win the election if it nominates Gou instead of Han, the poll found.
When asked to choose between Gou and Tsai, 46.7 percent said Gou, while 40.4 percent said Tsai.
If Gou ran against Lai, he would have the support of 46.4 percent of voters, compared with Lai’s 40 percent, the poll found.
While Tsai’s support rating was higher than Lai’s when respondents were asked to choose one of them against Gou or Han, Lai had a lead over Tsai when they were polled against each other, the survey showed.
When asked to choose between Tsai and Lai, 43.2 percent said Lai, while 37.8 percent said Tsai.
The margin between Tsai and Lai has shrunk by 5.7 percentage points compared with a Green Party Taiwan poll released on March 26.
The survey interviewed 1,011 respondents on Friday and Saturday last week. It was weighted to fit the population profile and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
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