Taiwan Ruling Party’s Polling Edge Narrows as Election Heats Up

Taiwan’s ruling party has seen its lead in the race to be the next president shrink, as the race heats up less than a month before voting.

The Democratic Progressive Party’s Lai Ching-te had the support of 35% of respondents in a survey released Tuesday by online news outlet My Formosa, just ahead of Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang at 31.7%. Ko Wen-je, the Taiwan People’s Party’s nominee, was third with 18.2%.

In late August, Lai led Hou by 25.5 percentage points in the poll by the online news outlet. The survey has a margin of error of 2.8% in either direction.

Hou and Lai are tied in a poll by United Daily News, a newspaper that generally backs the KMT, the party that is Beijing’s preferred negotiating partner on the island. They both got the support of 31% of respondents, with Ko at 21%.

Voters in the democracy of more than 23 million people will choose their next president and lawmakers on Jan. 13 in an election that will shape US-China relations for years.

An administration run by DPP, which has sought to strengthen Taipei’s ties with Washington and its allies as a counterweight to Beijing, would further obstruct Chinese President Xi Jinping’s goal of bringing Taiwan under Beijing’s control.

China is unwilling to talk with the DPP because it refuses to acknowledge its claim over the island. It has held major military drills around the island twice since August 2022 because President Tsai Ing-wen met senior US lawmakers.

Both Hou and Ko have indicated that they’ll seek talks with Beijing.

The three candidates will hold a single televised debate on Dec. 30. From Wednesday until the debate, they will appear on TV together another three times to deliver what the election commission calls “policy presentations” that allow the candidates to lay out how they would govern.