TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Former health minister and head of the Central Epidemic Command Center Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) has taken the lead in the three-way Taipei mayoral race, according to one poll.

In the latest Liberty Times poll, 30.13% of respondents back Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chen, 22.92% support Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), and 20.52% choose independent candidate Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊), the former deputy mayor of Taipei. Chen now leads Chiang by 7.21 percentage points, while the gap between Chiang and Huang is less than 3 percentage points. There are 23.83% who are undecided and 2.6% refused to answer.

In terms of who is most likely to win, 30.63% of voters think Chen will win, 23.72% think Chiang will come out on top, and 13.61% see Huang will emerge victorious. Another 32.03% of voters surveyed had no opinion.

As for gender, Chen is in the lead among both males and females with 28.1% of male voters supporting Chen, ahead of Chiang's 22.93%, and Huang's 26.45%. Chen also has the lead among women, at 28.74%, while 23.56% support Chiang and 22.22% favor Huang.

When it comes to likeliness of voting, 76.86% said they will definitely vote, 16.93% said that they will probably vote, and 6.11% said they will definitely not vote. Only 0.09% refused to comment.

The survey was conducted from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3 and gathered valid responses via telephone from 1,072 adults 20 and over and had a sampling error of plus or minus 2.99% with a confidence level of 95%.

A TVBS survey released back on Aug. 29, found that 87% of Taipei citizens said they are planning to vote. Of these voters, 36% supported Chiang, 26% backed Huang, and 23% would opt for Chen. Less than 1% support  Taiwan Renewal Party candidate Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智), while 14% were undecided.