Analysis: Taiwan's Latest Election Polls
Political analyst Courtney Donovan Smith gives an overview of what the latest polling says a month out from Taiwan's general election.
Transcript
00:00 What are the general developments in the most recent polls?
00:03 In the polls, what's interesting is that since the breakdown of cooperation, negotiations
00:09 between the Ke camp and the Ho camp, what's happened is that Ho's polls have been, he's
00:15 been rising in the polls and Ke has been dropping.
00:20 Now as of today in the Taiwan News poll of polls that I aggregate, Ke is at about 20%,
00:29 Ho is at 30% and Lai is about 39%.
00:34 Do you look into, or do other pollsters look into why voters are going to vote the way
00:38 that they are?
00:39 Is this a matter of party loyalties or do policy announcements have a genuine sway on
00:44 them?
00:45 Generally speaking, when it comes to choosing a presidential candidate, it's the policies
00:50 toward China, views on sovereignty and national defense that usually hold sway as the most
00:56 important issues.
00:58 But is this election a shoo-in for the DPP?
01:00 What about undecided voters, which from what I can tell make up anywhere from 10 to 20%
01:05 of the electorate?
01:06 In the Taiwan News poll of polls right now, undecideds are just under 10%.
01:13 So as things stand right now, Lai is looking quite good.
01:17 Does this sort of spell the end of the Taiwan People's Party sort of third party experiment?
01:22 Are we seeing a repeat of past third party challengers that have sort of risen and then
01:27 only to fade away?
01:29 It's hard to predict with Ko Wenjie because there have been times in the past when he
01:33 seemed to have faded, didn't think he might bounce back, and yet he has.
01:37 However, he has all the ingredients for another collapse like, say, for example, the People's
01:44 First Party.
01:45 It's a party that's led by primarily a single charismatic leader.
01:51 And what do things look like in the legislature?
01:54 Most analysts, and I concur, the way things are shaping up is it looks like the DPP will
02:00 lose their absolute majority.
02:02 However, there are a lot of independent candidates out there.
02:06 Who knows who they'll caucus with?
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