Two polls released yesterday showed that support for the two candidates running for mayor in Sinbei City (the new name of Taipei County following its upgrade next month) was close to a statistical tie, suggesting that it will likely remain a close race all the way to the finish on Nov. 27.
One survey by the Taiwan Brain Trust, a think tank generally perceived to sympathize with the pan-green camp, showed Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Sinbei mayoral candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) leading with 39.9 percent against his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) counterpart, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), at 37.2 percent, a tie within the margin of error.
The other poll, commissioned by the Chinese-language Apple Daily, had Chu leading 33.5 percent to Tsai at 30.4 percent. The same poll suggested 36.1 percent of the respondents had not made up their minds yet.
The Taiwan Brain Trust and Apple Daily polls were the first taken since the two candidates sparred over how they would tackle community housing, a policy that was thrust into the limelight after Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said he would accelerate the transformation of vacant lots into low-cost rental properties.
This measure, which would be aimed at the young and -disadvantaged, was supported by 76.5 percent of respondents, according to the Taiwan Brain Trust survey. Support was especially pronounced in downtown Banciao (板橋) and Linkou (林口), where the central government has announced plans to build thousands of new low-cost housing units.
On which candidate would be better suited to carry out the policy, respondents in the Apple Daily poll gave high marks to Tsai, with 33.2 percent saying they believed there was a bigger chance of this being carried out if she were elected mayor, against 20.9 percent for Chu.
Hou Han-chun (侯漢君), professor of public policy at National Taipei University, said the race was still too close to call. However, he added, one interesting thing was that while the Taiwan Brain Trust poll suggested the structure of the electorate in Sinbei City favors the KMT, moderate voters who did not identify themselves with either party accounted for 37 percent of the eligible voters and Tsai has so far received more support from them than Chu.
Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), a political scientist at Soochow University, added that the polls indicated the not-guilty verdict handed down to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), on Friday had limited impact on Tsai’s electoral outlook.
The two campaigns, meanwhile, reacted cautiously to the latest polls, with both candidates acknowledging that they were still in the final stages of the campaign, which first started more than six months ago.
“Every poll is used as a reference, but it shows that the key to winning the elections is to get out the vote,” Chu said at a campaign event in Banciao City. “Only with a high turnout can we win this election, the polls just aren’t the same as the real thing.”
Tsai response was: “From the start to the finish, this was always going to be a tight race and regardless of whether polls rise or fall, the winning margin is going to be very small.”
The Taiwan Brain Trust survey was conducted from Thursday to Saturday and had a margin of error of 3 percent.
The Apple Daily poll was conducted on Saturday and Sunday from a pool of 1,122 eligible voters by Shih Hsin University and also had a margin of error of 3 percent.
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