TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chair and former Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) is the most unusual character with significant public support to run for president in Taiwan’s democratic era. Of the three top contenders by far, he has the most room to maneuver and the highest potential to gain — or lose — support.
His two main rivals, New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) of the Kuomintang (KMT) and Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are constrained by history and party ideology. As explored in my previous column, Lai is also saddled with the baggage of having to defend the current administration.
Being backed by major parties with long histories and plenty of resources, Hou and Lai have a floor of partisan supporters who will support them no matter what. It would be surprising if either fell below 25%, though it was breached in the 2000 election when KMT candidate Lien Chan (連戰) only got 23%. However, in that race, James Soong (宋楚瑜) had only just left the KMT to run as an independent and was still with that party’s ideology (the terms “pan-blue” and “pan-green” only emerged after the 2000 election, so they cannot be used it here).
The TPP is so new and has far fewer resources, so it probably has a much lower floor, meaning Ko has the potential to fall far lower than the other two. However, the TPP is the least disliked of the three parties.
Least disliked
In a My-Formosa poll from April 19-20, only 36.5% expressed negative feelings towards the TPP versus 53.1% towards the KMT and 44.8% towards the DPP. On positive feelings towards the parties, the DPP led with 44.3%, followed by the TPP at 40.9% and the KMT at 31.4%.
Though the TPP did not top the list in positive feelings, it is interesting to note, unlike the KMT and DPP, it was the only party where the positives outnumbered the negatives. Unsurprisingly, it also had the highest number of “unclear” responses, which would include “I don’t know.”
Lai is currently leading in almost all polls, though more pan-green leaning polling put his support in the mid-thirties while pan-blue polls put his support in the upper-twenties, showing significantly higher numbers of undecideds. Some polls have undecideds as low as 11%, and others as high as 27%.
Almost all polls agree that Hou is roughly in the mid-twenties and Ko in the low-to-mid twenties. Though some polls have had Ko in second place, most have him roughly 3% down on Hou.
Over the last few months, the trends in the polls are that Hou’s support has dropped precipitously since his peak last December, Lai’s support has been eroding at a drip-drip pace, and Ko has been rising slowly. If these trends continue and Ko starts to consistently poll higher than Hou, then the narrative around Ko will begin to radically shift.
That could move the discussion to Ko being the main challenger to Lai, not Hou, especially if he can open up a decent margin ahead of Hou. If he can maintain that edge going into the late fall, when the average voter starts to look more deeply into the candidates, and they like what they see, then he has a shot at winning.
Dump-save
This is due to what is called in Taiwan the “dump-save effect” (棄保效應), whereby voters dump their preferred candidate and strategically vote for another to stave off a hated opposition party. That is what happened in the 2018 Taipei mayoral race when pan-green voters dumped their candidate to support Ko so the KMT would not win.
A similar thing happened in the Hsinchu mayoral race in November 2022, but this time it was pan-blue voters dumping their candidate to support the TPP’s Ann Kao (高虹安), so the DPP would not win. In other words, it's theoretically possible that voters in either camp could jump to Ko in order to defeat their hated rival camp.
Of course, the reverse could or likely would happen if Ko’s support drops or if Hou surges ahead and Lai remains strong. However, unlike his rivals, if his support level remains competitive, even if he stays at a narrow third, he is likely to keep much of his voter support intact.
To keep his support on an upward trajectory, he has a few areas of potential support. Strong supporters of Terry Gou (郭台銘) have been very loudly saying that when the KMT chose Hou as their candidate, Gou was “defrauded,” and some have been saying online “no Gou, vote for Ko” or “no Gou, stay home (on election day)” to express their outrage.
There is a lot of speculation as to Gou’s next moves. He just had a three-hour meeting with the speakers of the Changhua and Pingtung County Council, sparking rumors he might pursue an independent run, in spite of his promise not to.
There is also talk of Gou cooperating with the TPP, and Gou and Ko have a good relationship. It’s hard to imagine Gou accepting the vice presidential slot, though it is possible.
More likely, he might be brought on board to show up at campaign events for Ko. That would help Ko to peel off more pan-blue voters.
Not popular with older people
Ko also has the edge over political independents. The above-referenced poll shows that 37.7% view him positively, versus only 29.9% for the DPP and 26.8% for the KMT.
His biggest uphill battle, however, will be to convince voters over the age of 50 to trust him. He is already leading significantly with 20 to 29-year-olds and is a little ahead with those 30-39, but to really take off, he needs the demographically larger older groups.
His support among 40 to 49-year-olds is a respectable second place behind Lai, but with 50 to 59-year-olds, his support is only 18%, 9.7% with those aged 60-69, and an abysmal 5.9% with those older than 70. To have any chance of winning, he has to improve those numbers significantly.
Recently, for a change, he has not been the gaffe-prone machine he was so famously as Taipei mayor.
While not as impressive as Lai’s, Ko's resume is respectable. Like Lai, he hails from the medical profession (which is popular in Taiwan), has executive experience as mayor, was educated in the United States for one year and can communicate in English, and recently wrapped up a one-month trip to the U.S. which appeared to go well.
He also needs to sell his party platform, image, and newly emerging ideology. I did a four-part series on the subject (here, here, here, and here).
Up until this year, the TPP was largely unformed and came across as muddled, but this year it has been making concerted efforts to change that. The underlying principles behind the party are that decision-making should be scientific, rational, pragmatic, objective, and professional.
Party platform
On China, Ko hopes to open dialogue with China to promote peace but refuses to endorse the “1992 Consensus” that China says is the precondition for any talks. He wants to remain close to the U.S. and Japan, and so far has sounded the most hawkish on national defense of all the candidates.
If elected, he wants to convene a national conference across political lines to reach a unified consensus on how to deal with China. He also promised to appoint officials across party lines in an effort to build consensus with the legislature on issues and reduce partisanship.
That is interesting, though it creates the odd situation whereby a vote for him is a vote for putting all the parties in office. I'm curious to see how popular this proves to be.
He wants to introduce accountability in the presidency and strengthen the balance of power between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. He would also deliver annual “State of the Union” speeches to the legislature.
If his polling holds up, and especially if he can pull into second place, when the time comes for average voters to really examine their options, much will depend on those policy ideas. If they prove popular, that might deepen his support, especially among older voters.
It’s hard to say how well his policy ideas will be received. Some of them are unusual and have never been proposed before in Taiwan at the national level. Ko is an unusual character, with a very new political party and entering an unusual political cycle and environment.
The odds are still stacked against him, but he could still pull it off. Regardless, he will make this an interesting race, testing a lot of firsts.
