The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) enjoys the most support among all political parties, while support for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has fallen 4 percentage points from last month, the equivalent of nearly 800,000 voters, this month’s Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation poll showed yesterday.
Apart from the KMT’s losses, the result was little changed from last month, shifting only 1.5 percentage points at most, the foundation said.
The DPP garnered 30.5 percent support, followed by the KMT at 15.6 percent, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) at 12.5 percent, the Taiwan Statebuilding Party at 2.3 percent, the New Power Party at 2.1 percent and other parties at 1.9 percent.
That represented a 1.3 percentage point slip for the DPP and a less than 1 percentage point difference for the rest.
However, the largest number of respondents, 33.8 percent, said that they did not support any party, up 3.2 percentage points from last month.
The KMT’s poor showing is a direct result of its losses in the Dec. 18 referendums, Taichung by-election and the failed recall of independent Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐), the foundation said.
Considering that support for the KMT has long hovered at about 20 percent, the loss represents a significant blow to the party, as it now only enjoys a 3.1 percentage point lead over the TPP, it said.
It is the party’s third-lowest rating since July 2016, only slightly higher than in February and May 2020, it added.
On the government’s performance, nearly half of respondents said they “essentially support” its handling of domestic affairs, about 8.4 percentage points higher than the 41 percent of respondents who did not approve.
About 43 percent gave Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) more than 60 points out of 100 in his three years in office, while 20 percent gave him 60 and 31 percent gave him less than 60 for an average of 60.77 points.
Asked about their personal quality of life, 73 percent said they were satisfied, while 22 percent said they were not satisfied.
Sixteen percent of people said they were “extremely satisfied,” the foundation said, adding that it seems the COVID-19 pandemic is causing more people to count their blessings.
Meanwhile, 68.9 percent of respondents said they fear contracting COVID-19, 15.6 percentage points less than at the start of the previous domestic outbreak in May last year.
The number of people saying they were not worried also rose 14.8 percentage points to 30.1 percent, the foundation said.
In comparison, 49 percent of respondents in May last year said that they were “extremely worried” about contracting COVID-19.
This likely has to do with the relatively milder symptoms associated with the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, although whether that is a reason to take the risk lightly remains to be seen, the foundation said.
In addition, only 17 percent said they might choose Medigen for their booster shot because President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received it, showing that the administration’s strategy to promote the domestic vaccine is not having the desired effect, the foundation said.
On the initiative to combine Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County into a special municipality, 33 percent said they agreed, while 38 percent disagreed and 29 percent had no opinion.
Responses were split along party lines, with about half of DPP supporters approving of the proposal against only 18 percent of KMT supporters and 26 percent of TPP supporters.
The poll of people aged 20 and older was conducted on Monday and Tuesday last week via residential telephone sampling. There were 1,083 valid samples with a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points.
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