Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) support rating has surpassed those of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) mayoral candidate Pasuya Yao (姚文智) combined, a poll released yesterday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation showed.
The survey asked respondents who they would vote for if the elections were held tomorrow.
According to the poll, 42.1 percent of respondents said they would vote for Ko, 28.5 percent said they would vote for Ting and 11.6 percent said they would vote for Yao.
Photo: CNA
The poll found that 2.6 percent said they would vote for one of the two independent candidates, while 15.1 percent said they were undecided, unwilling to vote or refused to answer.
Foundation chairman You Ying-lung (游盈隆) said he was “shocked” that the results were similar to those of a poll conducted in February.
Ko’s support rating has dropped by 5.5 percent, Ting’s has increased by 3.3 percent and Yao’s has fallen by 4 percent since February, but Ko is still clearly in the lead, he said.
According to the poll, 55.4 percent of respondents who identified as KMT supporters said they would vote for Ting, while 35.2 percent said they would vote for Ko.
Of those who identified as DPP supporters, 50.1 percent said they would vote for Ko and 36.1 percent said they would vote for Yao, while 45.7 percent of median voters said they would vote for Ko, 14.3 percent for Ting and 6.6 percent for Yao.
The results show that KMT and DDP supporters are divided, and explains why Ko is leading the poll, You said.
The survey also found that Ko had an approval rating of 55.7 percent and a disapproval rating of 36.2 percent, which was also similar to the February poll. His approval rating fell by 1.1 percent and disapproval rating dropped by 3.2 percent since then.
However, when respondents were specifically asked about Ko’s handling of the Taipei Dome project, 60.1 percent disapproved, while only 27.5 percent approved.
When presented with a scenario in which Ko loses the mayoral race and runs for president in 2020, only 28.1 percent approved, the survey found.
When asked if they would approve of a scenario in which Ko wins the mayoral race and runs for president in 2020, 67.4 percent of respondents disapproved, while 21.9 percent approved.
Shih Hsin University Graduate Institute for Gender Studies professor Chen Yi-chien (陳宜倩) said there has not been substantial debate among the mayoral candidates on their core values and important issues, which makes the election uninteresting.
Chen expressed the hope that there would be real discussions on labor, gender and other issues before election day.
Ko campaign office spokesman Lin Hsiao-chi (林筱淇) said Ko’s diligence in performing his mayoral duties and caring for the public, as well as his practicality, has made an impression on Taipei residents, adding that political party affiliation is not the residents’ only consideration when voting.
Ting said the results are for reference only, adding that he would continue trying to win support.
The telephone survey was prepared by the foundation and conducted from Sunday to Tuesday last week by Focus Survey Research on eligible voters.
It collected 1,074 valid samples and has a confidence level of 95 percent and margin of error of 2.99 percentage points.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS