TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- In a hypothetical one-on-one presidential election matchup, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) won by 20 percentage points over itinerant Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) in a poll conducted last week by the Taiwan New Constitution Foundation.

In the survey, which was conducted from Thursday to Saturday last week (Aug. 1 to 3) and released on Wednesday (Aug. 7), 51 percent of respondents chose Tsai, while 31 percent opted for Han, a margin of 20 percent, reported Formosa Television. Compared with the results of the same survey conducted in May, support for Tsai in a head-to-head matchup with Han increased by 7.6 percentage points.

If Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) joins the race, 41.9 percent would choose Tsai, 25.7 percent would pick Han, and 22.6 percent would back Ko. This represented an increase of 8.1 percent over the previous survey for Tsai in a three-way contest.

In a four-way race with Foxconn Tycoon Terry Gou (郭台銘), 39.2 percent of respondents chose Tsai, 27.9 percent opted for Han, 12.5 percent went for Gou, and 12.4 percent backed Ko, reported UDN. When asked if they supported Gou running as an independent candidate, 33.9 percent responded with an affirmative.

The survey, which was carried out by telephone, received 1,068 valid samples from people aged 20 or older in all 22 of Taiwan's major counties and cities. The survey had a level of confidence of 95 percent and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.0 percentage points.

This appears to show that the cigarette smuggling scandal, which first broke on July 22, has had little or no effect on popular support for Tsai.