Voter decision-making in Taiwan is complex, as with anywhere else. On top of cross-strait relations, structural factors like class and wealth affect who people vote for. Long-term party loyalty plays a role. Electoral calculations make a difference, especially in “inherently unstable” three-way races like the one going on right now. And so do shorter-term economic choices. The wildcard in this list of determinants, though, is always “events, dear boy, events,” as former British prime minister Harold Macmillan may or may not have said.
As Taiwan’s election campaign ramps up in time for next January, a broad range of events may already have had an impact. There was President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) visit to the U.S. at the start of April, in which she met with House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Or there was former Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 12-day visit to China beginning at the end of March. Or there was the surge in #MeToo revelations that began at the end of May, particularly (though by no means exclusively) impacting the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. Or, around the same time as that surge began, there was the series of accusations about a kindergarten in New Taipei giving barbiturates to children that saw Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate for president, Hou You-yi (侯友宜), criticised for his handling of the case (though ultimately hair follicle testing failed to find barbiturates or other drugs harmful to children, and teachers were not charged.)
Each of these events has been the subject of both national and international media coverage, and looking at online search volumes within Taiwan (imperfectly) verifies that they have at least some resonance with the wider population. Using Google Trends (plus the Glimpse Chrome extension), spikes in absolute search volume can be found for each of the events mentioned above. They add to various events in Ukraine (the Wagner Group’s attempt at a coup most notably) and the “Fairness and Justice to Save Taiwan” (公平正義救台灣) rally, which was on the same day as the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) conference, as some of the most obvious political click-generators on the roadmap toward the election so far.
However, interest in events doesn’t automatically impact how people vote. Search volumes returned to normal levels soon after each of those spikes, with Ma Ying-jeou’s China visit making the most prolonged impact at around a month and a half. So one has to look elsewhere to prove if any of the events’ effects still linger in any meaningful way.
“I think most people would agree with your list of the most prominent events so far, maybe adding Hou’s visit to [National Taiwan University (NTU), where he was subject to harsh questioning],” says Nathan Batto, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, and author of the most authoritative English-language blog on Taiwanese elections, Frozen Garlic. “However, I don’t think any of them have really moved the bar. Most of them fall in the category of solidifying people’s pre-existing biases.”
Major polling appears to fit this analysis. My Formosa, for instance, shows no particular change in trends between March and April, around the time of the China and U.S. visits listed above. Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation showed some gain for (at the time still-to-be-confirmed) KMT candidate Hou during the same period, but this was mostly lost by May and entirely wiped out by June.
Only two events really stand out, according to Batto. “The kindergarten and NTU episodes are the possible exceptions,” he says via email, “not because I think they were decisive, but because the polls actually shifted against Hou after those events and we need to point to something to explain it.” My Formosa, Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation and pretty much everyone else show Hou’s numbers dropping through May (from near 30% to around 20% of voter support), which happened after the kindergarten incident. Meanwhile, My Formosa shows a small recovery at the end of May (22.6%) disappearing into June (17.1%), which chronologically follows on from the speeches.
However, overall, events aren’t how Batto sees the race being defined at this point. “So far, this race has been shaped less by discrete events than by slow-moving long-term factors,” he says, listing: “Satisfaction or not with DPP governance, the KMT’s continual low popularity, the large group of voters unhappy with both major parties, fatigue with seven years of DPP domination, slow and not very equal economic growth and not great job prospects for younger voters, the continuing threat from China, and so on.”
For now, then, those watching the campaign can view this situation in two ways. Either it’s looking like this election will be dominated by longer-term and structural issues, or it could be that the “events, dear boy,” are still to emerge. “Seeing a lot of confident predictions about Taiwan’s January 2024 elections based on polls like this,” Kharis Templeman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, tweeted pointedly this week. “It’s worth remembering the election is still over [five] months away, and polls aren’t all that predictive right now.”
It’s a sensible reminder. And there remain major shifts that are foreseeable, nevermind those that aren’t. “When Terry Gou [郭台銘] decides to enter or not enter the race, that will be significant,” Batto suggests, referring to the billionaire founder of Foxconn, who missed out on the KMT nomination to Hou and who has appeared to be running a shadow campaign in the months since then.
Ultimately, you can never tell. “Maybe something dramatic will happen to define the race, the way Hong Kong protests and revelations about Han [Kou-yu’s (韓國瑜)] real estate did four years ago, but I don’t think we have seen it yet,” Batto says.
Image: Office of the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan)
Leave a Reply