So the opinion polls are close now, and the blackout period is approaching. The campaigns are stronger this time around on all sides. So here is my poorly organized overview of the past elections.
Recent Polls
Can Lai Ching-De bring it home?
No presidential leader in the polls has lost in Taiwan. I’ve not been able to find polls from 2008 or before. Yet. But Lai’s lead is thin given the ‘i don’t knows’ ‘switchers’ and ‘shy voters’ and ‘stay at homers’; and let’s not forget that margin of error of 3%.
So while we’ve not seen a poll leader lose before, this election is unusual in that it’s the VP who’s leading. No VP has been elected successfully before.
Elections by the Stats
Even in the States it doesn’t happen that often: Joe Biden, but that was a gap of 20 years; and George Bush after the double presidency of Ronald Reagan. Lien Chan came close. Soong also failed. Also, I hear people say ‘rotation’, ‘rotation’.
Impression: I wonder if we’re looking at a slight win for the Blue presidency but a green legislature again with a reduced majority and more TPP members (the reason that Ko is running). Is that right? What’s your assessment?
Did Ko Wen-Che throw away a blue victory?
Will I be right? Who knows? Who cares! If Ko-Hou had done a deal… we’d be looking at a strong blue win, but I think the scenario of 2000 is a possibility where Ko blows the blue win by sucking enough blue voters away to tilt towards green. I do expect Ko’s voters to collapse so I think 20% is optimistic as a final tally.
It seems the number of undecideds has dropped from about 18% to about 12%. And it looks like 3% have either switched (but where?) or given up Lai; Ho has benefited with a 4% gain; while Ko has gained 5%. So where did the green voters go? Are they now going to stay home? Are they switching to Ko? Are the undecideds switching to Ho? That’s what it looks like.
Lessons from the Past? But will the present listen?
Bing created this list of voter turnouts from 2000.
The elections show that multiple presidential candidates is the norm in Taiwan. The 3rd candidate usually stands to solidify support for their national party and its candidates in legislatures elsewhere. They don’t seem to impact the resulting majority winner, except in 2000.
Personal view
Really, this election is quite close to call. Perhaps closer than Lai’s team would like to admit publicly. I predict a Green victory but certainty is not high, given the numbers. Is the trend your friend in this situation? Or have we reached the end of the trend? So is it about to flip? What say you? I’ll post the Youtube here on election day!
Taiwan’s electorate has grown massively since 1996. So it’s not surprising that the % of active voters has gone down somewhat.