New polling out of the Chinese Communication Management Society (中華傳播管理學會) has been released. It shows the race for Taipei Mayor, the results are certainly a change from previous polling.

In the most recent polling, Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) has now pulled out ahead of all competitors. This is yet another instance of a shift of leadership in the race. In most previous polling, Wayne Chiang (蔣萬安) was the clear leader. Back in January, Chiang was winning with at least 11 points in every matchup, now Chen has made an incredible leap past him to take the lead.

In this most recent data (see graphs and polling methods at the end of this article, the full poll can be seen on the Chinese Communication Management Society’s Facebook Page), Chen leads Chiang by 3.4 points, 33.6 to 30.2 percent. In third place with 23.3 percent is Vivian Huang (黃珊珊). Huang has actually lead some matchups in previous polling, namely when Chiang didn’t run.

In the polling, 10.5 percent responded that they had yet to decide 2.4 percent said they didn’t know how they would vote. This certainly provides enough for room for any candidate to pull ahead. Though Huang pulling ahead of both Chen and Chiang seems highly unlikely, then again there is a lot of time left before the election.

It is nearly assured that Chiang will run, that means if Huang also runs she is more likely to take votes from Chiang. Using other polling, it also seem highly unlikely that the current Deputy Mayor (Huang) will be able to beat Chiang in almost any scenario. She is much more likely to split the pan-Blue vote as her party, the TPP, tends to receive more votes from the Blue camp.

Chen Shih-chung, for his part, faces a highly volatile path. If he and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which he heads, are able to continue to keep COVID under control, or even get back to 0 local cases a day, he is likely to maintain, if not grow his popularity. However, with plans to once again loosen restrictions, there is a non-zero chance that there could be another outbreak in Taiwan and his popularity would likely plummet. It is also a serious decision for him because if he decides to run then he should step down from his current position, with no guarantee that he will win the mayoral race.

With over 8 months left until the local elections, there is a lot that could change. However, it does seem likely, barring something drastic, that it will be a race between Chiang and Chen. As more polling and relevant developments occur, we’ll be here to keep y’all updated.

The data for this poll was obtained between February 18th and 19th of this year. Those pulled were Taipei residents 20 years and older. This was a telephone poll with 95 percent level of confidence and +/-2.98 percent margin of error.