Formosa Newsletter (美麗島電子報) has just published its recent polling showing that current Taichung Mayor, Lu Shiow-yen is likely set to get a second term, baring anything drastic.
Recently a child abuse scandal from last year has reemerged with fresh allegations of government incomitance, threatening to harm the credibility of and support for the Lu government. However, it seems that people have either already forgotten about it, or don’t believe it to be the government’s fault. Just days after this, Formosa did polling across Taichung and the results were firmly in Lu’s corner with her trouncing all competitors, just as we have seen in previous polling.
The poll was administered all districts in Taichung. 1073 people, age 20 and older, were successfully polled via phone (both cellphone and landline). The polling was conducted from February 23rd to 24th. The poll had a maximum sampling error of ±3.0% and the level of confidence was 95 percent. Tables from the polling data can be seen below.
According to the polling, while trust in the Lu government is down more than 12 points from last August, it is up from last December from 68.3 percent to 69.4 percent. The majority of this trust comes from supporters of KMT, the Taiwan People’s Party, and from those that are independent. It seems the only group in which the majority doesn’t support Lu is DPP voters who view her as only 42.4 percent trustworthy, while 49.7 do not have trust in her and her government.
When looking at satisfaction with the Mayor’s government, the numbers look quite similar. 72.3 percent of respondents report being satisfied with the local government, while only 23.7 are dissatisfied. Again this is down from last August when 80.6 percent of respondents said that they were satisfied with their government. Though similarly to the numbers of those that trust the government, satisfaction is way up from back in 2019, increasing over 34 percentage points.
Interestingly, far fewer people believe that Mayor Lu understand the needs of Taichung voters. Just 54.3 percent of those responding said that they believed Lu was capable of understanding the needs of the Taichung public, though only 33.1 responded that they didn’t believe this to be the case. This means that around 16 percent of voters that are satisfied with Lu believe that she doesn’t understand the needs of those in Taichung.
When looking at how respondents viewed Lu’s response to the pandemic and how well she fostered the economy during this period, Lu was also popular. This is likely, as previous polling suggests, at least partially due to Taichung’s Shopping Festival (臺中購物節) which reportedly raised nearly NT$30 billion. Just 19.9 percent disagreed that she had significant economic achievements, while 66.8 percent believed that she had.
When Lu and her opponents were polled on their viability as candidates, Lu also came out on top. In the open ended question where respondents were asked to list candidates that would be suitable as Taichung Mayor, Lu scored 64.3 percent of the vote, her next best opponent was former Taichung Mayor, Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) who scored 36.8 percent of support. Current legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌), who is also Commissioner of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) scored 22.4 percent. Taichung Legislator Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純) garnered 15.1 percent, coming in last place. 12.5 percent did not have a choice yet.
When Lu is removed from the conversation and respondents were asked to pick the DPP opponent with the best competitiveness, Lin takes over the top spot with 38.1 percent of the vote. Tsai received 21.7 percent and Ho got 10.1 percent. While it is notable that Ho was the only person to decrease their numbers when removing Lu was Ho, this is likely due to the added option of them all being the same or similar. This option received 14.3 percent percent saying that all of the three candidates would be similar or the same. Those responding as unclear or non-answers totaled 15.8 percent.
When looking at head to head matchups between Lu and the various DPP candidates, the current mayor still wins out in every matchup. Against Lin Chia-lung, Lu scored 48.9 and Lin received 33.6 of the total. Against Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌), Lu garnered 55.5 percent while Tsai got 26.6 percent. In a head-to-head with Ho Hsin-chun Lu won 59.2 to Ho’s 20.8 percent.
Just as in previous polling, it seems that at least for now, Lu is on a clear path to victory. This could of course always change, especially with more than more than half a year to go until the election.
