EDITORIAL: Swing voters could decide election

With the local elections six weeks out, local daily news and talk shows are being filled with candidates’ campaign events, remarks, interviews, poll numbers, analysis and even fortune tellers making predictions for election results. However, the outcome is still ultimately decided by each citizen’s vote on election day.

The Taipei mayoral election has become a focus of attention this year, as Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator and Taipei mayoral candidate Puma Shen (沈伯洋) rapidly gained support in an unconventional campaign, sparking a media sensation.

Taipei has about 2 million eligible voters, and with a general turnout of about 70 percent, approximately 1.4 million votes are expected to be cast — 700,000 votes is considered the threshold for candidates to secure a win, with 50 percent of the votes cast.

Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) won the 2022 election with about 575,000 votes (42.29 percent). Without a major third-party candidate this year, many believe the Taipei mayoral election would be a typical showdown between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, with the KMT traditionally enjoying an advantage in the capital.

However, a TVBS poll released earlier this month showed that Shen’s approval ratings are closing on Chiang’s, with only a one-digit percentage point gap between them. Many are saying that whoever can secure the about 342,000 votes (25.14 percent) cast in 2022 for former independent candidate Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), endorsed by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), could win this year.

In other words, the “swing voters” could be the decisive factor in this year’s mayoral election.

Shen has been praised for his “crossover appeal” by doing interviews with local media that are generally considered “pro-blue,” including two interviews with long-time political figure and media personality Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), who was a KMT vice president candidate in 2024 and head of the KMT’s “blue fighters” group.

Shen’s interviews with long-time TV show producers Wang Wei-chung (王偉忠) and Li Si-duan (李四端) were examples of him reaching out to the other camp. It even prompted calls from KMT members to expel Jaw from the party for promoting Shen, which Jaw rebutted by saying that he had invited both candidates.

As a challenger against an incumbent, and coming from the DPP and its traditionally weaker base in Taipei, Shen has taken every opportunity to go to voters and persuade them of the merit of his campaign.

Shen has been interviewed by a wide variety of people, including travel influencers and literature shows. He has canvassed markets and shopping areas, and even held soapbox sessions to answer questions face-to-face in Taipei’s parks and public spaces.

On the other hand, Chiang has declinined interviews, as Jaw and other media personalities confirmed that they had been repeatedly rejected or ignored, and has avoided public debate with Shen until this month, when poll results started ringing alarm bells for his backers.

Chiang’s first interviews were with former legislator Julien Kuo (郭正亮) and radio host Tang Hsiang-lung (唐湘龍), alleged to have a clear pro-China stance, followed by Anne Wang (王淺秋), a former KMT election campaign spokesperson, and TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌).

His selection of venues, only reaching out to the TPP, the KMT’s ally, gives the impression that he is “seeking validation in an echo chamber,” and the TVBS poll indicated that over half of Huang’s former voters are leaning toward Shen.

Chiang came off poorly even in his own echo chamber, with Tang bluntly saying: “If his last name wasn’t Chiang, he might not have been mayor now,” right after Chiang left the interview.

Huang had offered to help Chiang resolve Taipei’s rat infestation during the interview, which some saw as a thinly veiled stab at the mayor.

While there is a vivid difference between the two candidates’ approaches, Vivian Huang on Tuesday last week said in a social media post that the 340,000 votes she received were not hers, but were from “independent-minded city residents” who keep their options open and evaluate whether a candidate can solve problems and deliver on their promises.

“If you do a good job, the people will let you continue; if you do a bad job, the people will replace you,” she said, reminding Shen and Chiang that they must persuade the swing voters of their merit, instead of seeing them merely as numbers up for grabs.

Shen seems to have understood this from the beginning and has said in interviews that his goal is to cross the blue-green divide and persuade as many city residents as he can, even trying to gain support from traditionally pan-blue voters. In contrast, Chiang has not stepped out of his comfort zone, and whether that will change remains to be seen, but voters are certainly evaluating their words and actions.