According to recent polling data, Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) seems to be in a pretty good position for the upcoming local elections this year.
Taiwan Indicators Survey Research (台灣指標調查) recently published poll results show Lu with 61.7 percent of her constituency having confidence in her job as mayor. Of this 20 percent were very trustful of her. Only 23.9 percent lacked confidence in her.
Similarly, 64.2 percent were satisfied with the job that Lu has done has mayor, while only 25.2 percent were not. Again nearly 20 percent (19.9) were very satisfied with her tenure. On economic and pandemic issues Lu also garnered high marks.
On the economy, more specifically Taichung’s Shopping Festival (臺中購物節), citizens were very pleased. 61.8 responded that they were satisfied while only 15.1 said that they were unsatisfied. If one is concerned with the economy this makes sense as the holiday is reported to have raised over 29 billion New Taiwanese dollars.
In terms of the pandemic Lu is also seen as doing a great job. 87.9 percent of respondents stated that they were satisfied with her work in combating COVID. In fact, only 6.9 percent stated that they were unsatisfied with the Taichung Mayor. With her favorables so high it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she is absolutely trouncing her competition in head-to-head matchups for the Mayoral race that will take place this November.
Her strongest competition is former Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍). However, even he isn’t much competition, which isn’t that surprising being that Lu bested him by more than 14 points in the 2018 election. In this data, Lu is up on Lin 52 to 22.1. While 20.2 percent of the electorate wants to wait and see what happens this still isn’t enough to cover the gap without pulling some of Lu’s voters away from her. The other two opponents are much much competition at all for Lu.
One potential is Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) who is a member of the Legislative Yuan out of Taichung. He is also the Commissioner of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), which seems like it could create conflicts of interest (but lets save that for another article). Tsai is only projected to get 16.8 percent of the vote, while Lu is estimated to get 52.5 percent.
Lu’s other possible adversary is Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純). Ho is also a member of the Legislative Yuan representing Taichung. She is projected to do the worst of the three potential challengers and would only, according to the data, only receive 15.6 percent of the vote to Lu’s 53.2 percent.
The situation is looking quite good overall for Lu Shiow-yen. On all fronts it seems she has kept her populace satisfied for the most part. Of course anything can happen in a few short months, especially in politics. However, barring anything crazy, it looks like Lu will get another term as Taichung Mayor.