Taiwanese election, Jan 2016

[jaichind]

Looks like the DPP was fairly effective in consolidating the Party List vote.  Toward the end of the election campaign there seems to be a strong movement among Youth Pan-Green circles to vote NPP, SDP-Green, and TSU in the party list indicating that the DPP cannot be trusted to pursue a true reformist pro-independence line and there were talk taht NPP might get to 15% of the vote on the party list. DPP had to go on a campaign last week before the election to counteract this.  Given the vote shares of NPP, SDP-Green and TSU, it seems DPP was successful.  On the Pan-Blue side, there was an unsaid movement to move votes from KMT to NP to get NP instead of PFP over the 5% threshold.  Looks like it almost worked.  NP on its own would most likely have gotten around 2% but ended up with 4.1%. Close but no cigar.

The main risk for DPP for NPP getting above 5% is that in 2020, with Sung out of the way the PFP vote will merge back into KMT.  But if DPP does not peruse the radical line then NPP might run a candidate for Prez and split the Pan-Green vote.

[DavidB.]

This story about a Taiwanese singer that was forced to apologize to China for waving the Taiwanese flag on Korean tv, which went viral on election day, might have helped Tsai.

[Asian Nazi]

Congrats to DPP and Tsai.  It is quite an accomplishment for a women to become a leader when she is NOT the daughter or wife of another prominent male leader, especially in Asia.

This.  Great shout out. 

Setting her individual politics aside, this is a major step forward for a region where female participation in politics is still horrifically low.  And no surprise it's the Chinese leading the way in progress

[ag]

great news (I do not like CPC )

[jaichind]

To filter out the effect of turnout, it is interesting to compare the vote share of the Pan-Blue and Pan-Green blocs as a percentage of the electorate.

              Pan-Blue          Pan-Green
2000        49.7%              33.0%
2004        40.1%              40.2%
2008        44.6%              31.7%
2012        40.5%              33.9%
2016        29.1%              37.2%

It is clear that while the Pan-Green performance is certainly above average but not too way out the ordinary.  It is the Pan-Blue vote that is way lower than historical norm. 

[Simfan34]

Difficult result.

[jaichind]

This story about a Taiwanese singer that was forced to apologize to China for waving the Taiwanese flag on Korean tv, which went viral on election day, might have helped Tsai.

Yes.  This is the 周子瑜 (Chou Tzu-yu) fiasco which I mentioned before.  I am pretty sure this swung around 1%-2% of vote toward the DPP mostly by pushing up DPP turnout and depressing KMT turnout.  The entire story is a bit complex and involves what I call opportunistic nationalism.

The story really starts with a singer and entertainer called 黃安 (Huang An)



who is from Taiwan Province.  He was quite active on the entertainment circuit on Taiwan in the 1990s and was generally pro-DPP and appeared in several DPP rallies.  But toward the end of the 1990s he had a falling out with the Taiwan entertainment establishment and decided to move with his entire family to Mainland China where his entertainment career continued and had limited but real success.  At the same time he became, conveniently, a strong advocate for Chinese Unification even as he still perform time to time on Taiwan.  Last few years he has taken to "exposing" various entertainers from Taiwan Province that perform and make a good deal of money on Mainland China as having pro-Taiwan Independence beliefs.  Most of the entertainers he "exposed" did seem to be pro-DPP or pro-NPP and it seemed reasonable that the Mainland Chinese consumers are aware of these entertainer's position on Taiwan Independence so they can make a choice to weather to consume their entertainment product.  As a result all these entertainers did see their career/revenue decline on Mainland China.  Many say that Huang does this more to make up for the fact that he himself was for Taiwan Independence back in the 1990s before his "transformation."

But a couple of weeks ago, he went too far.  He decided to "expose" one 周子瑜  (Chou Tzu-yu) for being pro Taiwan Independence



Who is 16 year old girl who is from Taiwan Province but is currently a member of a Korean Girl band that performs a good part of its circuit on Mainland China.  His proof was that there are several photos with her holding the ROC and ROK flags.  There were also several cases where she filled in "Taiwan" on where she is from.   This of course is a bum rap as almost all Unification supports on Taiwan Province also identify with ROC as well. It is those that are for Taiwan Independence that tend to reject the ROC flag.  In fact the Tsai 2016 campaign is the first DPP campaign where its candidate does seem to embrace the ROC flag as an attempt to move toward the middle ground on this topic.

Huang "exposing" Chou seems to have added pressure on the band she belongs which is managed by a Korean company JYP which has vast economic links to the Mainland China market.  So JYP mostly to save itself decided to pressure Chou to release a video where she announced that "Taiwan is a part of China and I am proud to be Chinese" but done in a way to make it clear she was being pressured the day before the election.  

https://youtu.be/t57URqSp5Ew

This provoked a very negative reaction on Taiwan social media and was denounced by both the pan-Blue and Pan-Green camps.   On Mainland China most of the social media felt that Huang went too far but the radical nationalist fringe came out to back Huang.  This then provoked a "social media war" between the Mainland China youth and Taiwan youth.   To be fair,  JYP should also take a lot of the blame for this.  The PRC government clearly did not ask for this sort of "confession" from her.  It was JYP that decided to push their own employee to do something like this to humor, so they think, the PRC regime. 

It is clear that Huang clearly blew up the current situation between Mainland China and Taiwan and mostly added to the DPP landslide.  The word on Mainland China is the PRC authorities will be having a "chat" with Huang very soon to berate him for his clumsy actions which seems only to backfire him the PRC and himself.    The word also is that Huang recently have been breaking regulations on the types of commercials he is doing while performing and that the PRC regime will start to "look into" these possible transgressions.   There is already talk on Mainland China social media that Huang is really just a DPP double agent since his actions ensured the DPP victory.

DPP and Tsai was going to win one way or another but Huang added an extra nail in the KMT coffin.  I suspect Huang's music career on Mainland China will take a quick dive very soon.  

[Hydera]

Is there any info about who are the 1st and 2nd choices for President amongst Soong voters if he didn't compete?

[DavidB.]

Thanks for your explanation, Jaichind!

[jaichind]

Is there any info about who are the 1st and 2nd choices for President amongst Soong voters if he didn't compete?

I would say almost all of them would either not vote of voted KMT.  There are no exit polls so one cannot be 100% sure.  My "proof" mostly comes from the fact that the vote shares of all pan-Green parities on the party list votes versus the pan-Blue parties on the party list vote almost line up with the pan-Green (DPP) and pan-Blue (KMT+PFP) votes in the Presidential race.

[jaichind]

ROC laws says that polls done 10 days before the election cannot be published.  But polls are allowed to be done, just not published before voting ends.  Right after polls closed, TVBS published its last poll followed by vote projections.  It was somewhat more off this time than 2004 2008 and 2012 where it was pretty accurate.  The reason it was off was for the same reason why the DPP victory was so large: turnout.

TVBS had for polls the days running up to the election



The 104 and 105 in the X-axis is means the 104th (2015) year and 105h (2016) year of the Republic of China which was founded in 1912.

Its final poll which was done 2 days before the election had

DPP   43
KMT  24
PFP   16

and from that it projected



DPP   52
KMT   32
PFP    16

Its final poll also, based on the responses on likelihood of voting, projected a turnout of 71.7% which is already a significant drop from the 74.4% turnout in 2012.  Based on that it projected the total votes to be

DPP    7.0 million votes
KMT    4.3 million votes
PFP     2.0 million votes

Which would be a 2.7 million vote victory by DPP over KMT.

TVBS's seems to have overestimated KMT/PFP turnout or was not able to take into account of the  周子瑜 (Chou Tzu-yu) incident which really reached a peak the day before the election on social media.  So the turnout ended up being 66.23% and votes being

DPP     6.89 million votes    56.12%
KMT    3.81 million votes    30.04%
PFP     1.58 million votes    12.84%

So the TVBS projection mostly got the DPP vote correct but overestimated the KMT and PFP turnout.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

So RIP KMT? Although looking on polls I guess it wasn't really shocking? And on Taiwan people really use Minguo calendar?

[jaichind]

So RIP KMT? Although looking on polls I guess it wasn't really shocking? And on Taiwan people really use Minguo calendar?

Well, the Pan-Blue bloc for sure is not dead.  Back in 2008 when the KMT beat DPP 59-41 there were talk that DPP was dead and it was clear to me it was not.  I felt back then the Blue-Green balance was around  55-45 and the 2008 victory represented a temporary lull in DPP fortunes due to a poor second DPP term.  Same thing here although I agree now that the Blue-Green balance is now roughly 50-50.  The DPP landslide more reflected a small Green gain followed by a temporary Blue lull given the poor KMT second term of 2012-2016.  It is likely but not assured that the KMT will be the dominate party on the Blue side so in that sense KMT is most likely not dead.  On the Green side if and when Tsia falters, NPP will be a much more difficult Pan-Green rival when compared to the TSU.

As for Mingguo calendar, all official documents uses ROC or Mingguo calendar.    It is unlikely the DPP will change that.  They had their chance in 2000 and that bus left already as Tsai DPP 2016 campaign is the most moderate ever on identification with ROC.   Taiwan Independence is for sure out given the power of PRC. What the PRC should worry about is an attempt by the DPP regime to align ROC with the USA-Japan alliance in the Pacific at the military level even as a majority of the population on Taiwan Province ROC seems to want to stay out and not take sides.

[jaichind]

Just to report on a result of a family friend that ran in this election.  One 范雲 (Fang Yun) who is the chairperson of the pro-Independence SDP ran in the Taipei 6th district on the Green Party-SDP ticket with DPP support.  She is quite close to the pro-Taiwan Independence branch of my family, especially my cousin and uncle.  She is a strong feminist, social justice activist and Taiwan Independence supporter and had held several positions in the DPP before bolting from DPP over the corruption scandal of DPP President Chen.  While I despise her politics, just like she despises my,  I know her to be a very friendly and interesting person to talk to, so while I backed her KMT opponent, just like I back the KMT across the board, I did wish her good luck in her race in the Deep Blue 6th Taipei District.

Her official campaign picture


She was defeated by her KMT incumbent opponent 46.1% vs 35.4% with various pan-Blue and pan-Green splinters taking the rest.  It is quite an accomplishment to hold the KMT to below 50% in the Taipei 6th district.  The KMT won here 60% to DPP 30% back in 2012 with PFP getting 6.6%.  

[jaichind]

There were two sets of events which led to this KMT disaster after it was soundly defeated in the 2014 County Magistrate and Mayoral elections.  First everyone within KMT expected new KMT Chairman Chu to run in 2016.  Everyone expected Chu to lose but perhaps keep it close.  Chu declined to run hoping to avoid to stench of defeat but also from having to deal with the continued internal battles between KMT Prez Ma and KMT Speaker of the House Wang.  So Hung, who was a radical Chinese unification supporter  ran and was nominated by default.   This provoked PFP's Sung to run as a moderate Pan-Blue alternative and began to catch fire.  With the KMT way behind in the polls, Chu was asked to step in and run instead of Hung more to save the KMT in legislative races.  This provoked the Deep Blue bloc within the KMT who felt betrayed.  They mostly did not turn out in this election and the KMT got the worst of both worlds.   The result being

Turnout   66.27%
DPP    56%
KMT    31%
PFP     13%

Playing what if.  If KMT and Chu just left it alone and let Hung run in the fall of 2015.  I would expect a lot of moderate KMT voters to vote DPP or PFP but the Deep Blue turnout would be large for Hung.  Result most likely being something like

Turnout   72%
DPP    53%
KMT    30%
PFP     17%

In many ways, as long the PFP voters mostly vote Pan-Blue in the Legislative races the results there might actually be better than what took place.  Tsai would have received something like 7.5 million votes and much greater mandate from a total votes point of view but with a somewhat smaller Legislative majority with a very powerful PFP.

If Chu just ran in early 2015 for the KMT nomination, Hung would have never entered the race.  And if Chu manages to unify the Pan-Blue bloc or at least the KMT,  then the KMT would still lose but by a less smaller margin as the PFP would have never had a chance to take off.  I would expect the result to be something like

Turnout 71%
DPP    51%
KMT   41%
PFP      8%

or if PFP does not run

Turnout 70%
DPP   52%
KMT   48%

[Kosmos]

Another country (well, in practise anyway) that beats my Sweden to having a female government leader. Gender issues aside, it seems like nationalism is as good a sell in Asia as it is over in Europe.

[Hydera]

Here's something not totally unexpected.

Compare the map of home usage of Hokkein.




And a map with the Soong+Chu votes combined.



And they line up perfectly.



Also i didn't think that Hsinchu had that much Hokkein speakers since i always considered it mostly demographically Hakka. But turns out that its actually majority Hokkein speaking not Hakka.

[jaichind]

Here's something not totally unexpected.

Compare the map of home usage of Hokkein.




And a map with the Soong+Chu votes combined.



And they line up perfectly.



Also i didn't think that Hsinchu had that much Hokkein speakers since i always considered it mostly demographically Hakka. But turns out that its actually majority Hokkein speaking not Hakka.

Yeah, that is part of it.  But it is also true that speaking Hoklo at home is highly correlated to income (higher income tend to not speak Hoklo at home) which is also highly correlated to level of education (higher education tends not to speak Hoklo at home.)  And it is a fact that Pan-Blue Pan-Green vote split has higher income and education voting Pan Blues and lower income and education voting Pan Greens.  BTW there is also a gender gap where women tend to vote Pan Blues and men tend to vote Pan Greens.  In 2012 Tsai performed worse among women when compared to men even as she is a women herself.  I think this time around the same will be true.   But yes, the rise of the DPP to some extend is part of the assertion of Hoklo majoritarianism in reaction of the domination of the Mainlanders  in Taiwan Province politics and high society in the 1940s-1990s period.   Of course this provoked a reaction from Hakkas and Aborigines which then embraced Pan-Blues.  Of course the the 2016 DPP campaign is the least Hoklo-centric campaign it has ever ran.  Tsai being a Hakka herself and not being able to speak Hoklo well (in fact she does not speak Hakka well either is a separate point) is one reason for this.  But Tsai 2016 for sure speaks less Hoklo on the stump than Tsai 2012.  One problem with the Tsai 2012 campaign was she tried to speak Hoklo in her speeches but it was going so badly that she then just switched to Mandarin.  This time around they pretty much junked the Hoklo dialect approach and Tsai pretty much spoke Mandarin the entire campaign.  The DPP logic is pretty much "We got this one won since the Pan-Blues are not going to turn out, so lets tone down the Taiwan Independence and Hoklo stuff to stop provoking the Pan-Blues."  

Of course understand that the Hoklos being spoken today in different parts of Taiwan Province is diverging.  In richer parts of Taiwan Province the Hoklo being spoken, if a all, is becoming a more corrupted version of Hoklo with ever higher borrowing of Chinese Mandarin over time.  Even though I am a strong Chinese nationalist and for sure support the Mandarin movement as a part integration of one Chinese culture, I think the preservation of pure Hoklo outside of official use has great cultural benefits.  Hoklo is an ancient Chinese dialect which is a window to ancient Chinese culture and literature.  All Chinese poems written in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and before, especially around the Jin Dynasty (265-420) rhyme almost perfectly when spoken in Hoklo whereas they pretty much does not rhyme well when spoken in Chinese Mandarin.  Over the last twenty years I am saddened to see pure Hoklo disappear from the more advanced areas of Taiwan Province (it is quite generational) and I suspect in more backward parts the same trend is already starting.  

[jaichind]

I will have to do my township by township result analysis once I get a hold of the data.  But doing the swing analysis on a regional basis.

Pan-Blue vote

2012       2016          Swing
91.80%   82.16%    -9.64%   Greater Jinmen (The Fujian Province counties)
74.06%   63.06%   -11.00%   Hualian County
69.50%   61.59%    -7.91%   Taidong County
66.82%   54.55%   -12.27%   Miaoli County
65.24%   53.54%   -11.70%   Greater Hsintsu (Hsintsu County+Hsintsu City)
60.15%   48.97%   -11.18%   Taoyuan County
58.41%   46.64%   -11.77%   Greater Taipei (Taipei City+New Taipei City+Keelong City)
57.63%   47.77%   - 9.86%   Naotou County
55.32%   44.99%   -10.33%   Greater Taichung (Old Taichung County+Old Taichung City)
54.35%   49.19%    -5.16%   Penghu County
53.51%   43.53%    -9.98%   Changhwa County
47.47%   37.94%    -9.53%   Yilan County
46.58%   36.61%    -9.97%   Greater Kaoshiung (Old Kaoshiung County+Old Kaoshiung City)
44.87%   36.51%    -8.36%   Pingdong County
44.19%   36.59%    -7.60%   Yunlin County
43.88%   36.46%    -7.42%   Greater Jiayi (Jiayi County + Jaiyi City)
42.28%   32.48%    -9.80%   Greater Tainan (Old Tainan County+Old Tainan City)
54.37%   43.88%   -10.49%   Total

Clearly shows the narrative of the election which is the abandonment of the urban Deep Blue section of the Pan-Blue vote base.  The Pan-Blue vote fell more in urbanized regions.  It is not even regression to the mean.  Greater Tainan which is the weakest Pan-Blue region but somewhat more urbanized had a greater drop than in Pan-Blue votes than other Green strongholds like Yunlin County, Greater Jiayi and Pingdong County even though they have stronger Pan-Blue presence.    Rural Penghu had a much smaller drop than the massively urbanized Greater Taipei even as Greater Taipei traditionally is much more strongly Pan-Blue.  Strong Pan-Blue regions like Taidong County fell a lot less than more urbanized counties.  The biggest falls of the Pan-Blue vote besides Greater Taipei are newly industrialized and urbanized areas like Greater Hsintsu (emerging IT industries), Miaoli (emerging biotech and healthcare industries) and Taoyuan (industrial spillover of Greater Taipei) even though Chu was a 2 term popular County Magistrate of Taoyuan in the 2001-2009 period. The favorite son could not stop the non-turnout of the Deep Blue vote bloc.

From a PVI point of view, there were almost no shifts, the pro-Green areas are still Changhwa County, Yilan County, Greater Kaoshiung, Pingdong County, Yunlin County, Greater Jiayi, and Greater Tainan.  The only difference is Penghu County which had a pan-Blue lean but starting in 2008 had a pan-Green lean as the Pan-Blue gained relative strength in urban areas with rural Penghu County having a pan-Green lean.  With the collpase of the urban vote for the Pan-Blues Penghu reverts to having a pan-Blue lean.

One good long term news for the Pan-Blue is the slow drift of Yilan to tilt more and more toward the Pan-Blue continues.  Yilan which is relatively rural for a Northern County but getting more advanced economicaly given its proximity to Greater Taipei  used to be the most pro-Green county back in the 1990s.  As it got more urbanized and influenced by Greater Taipei it has been drifting Pan-Blue throughout the late 1990s to 2012 period.  Yilan County for the Pan-Blues today is a lot like Virgina for the Democrats in the 1990s at the presidential level.  A couple of more election cycles could push Yilan in tilt Pan-Blue territory.

The flip side for the Pan-Greens is Changhwa County which has been slowly tilting toward the Pan-Greens over the last decade.  Despite being a fairly rural county the swing toward the Pan-Greens is fairly large compared to other rural counties.  Over time Changhwa County will most likely become more of a tilt Pan-Green County instead of being a bellwether County with a tiny tilt toward the Pan-Greens. I suspect over the next couple of election cycles Changhwa County and Yilan Counties will swap places where Changhwa County is solidly in the Pan-Green camp while Yilan will be a bellwether County with a slight Pan-Green tilt.

[jaichind]

One positive thing for the Pan-Blues about DPP control of the Legislature on the long run is that it could plant the seeds for a partial Pan-Blue revival in Southern Rural Counties.  One of the reasons why the Southern Counties drifted to the DPP in the late 1990s was the feeling that the KMT administration over the 1980s and 1990s negelcted the economic development of Southern Taiwan Province, especially rural Southern Taiwan Province.   Support for Taiwan Independence was a proxy for envy of  Northern Taiwan Province economic gains from trade with Mainland China  During the disastrous second term DPP Chen administration of 2004-2008, there were swings away from the Pan-Greens in Southern Counties but it was much lower then one would expect and DPP continues to hold the County Magistrate positions in Southern Counties based on the rural vote.  The main reason for this was that DPP Prez Chen was able to make the argument that he could not implement his agenda for Southern Taiwan Province economic revival due to the Pan-Blue majority in the Legislature and that the Northern Taiwan politician dominated Legislature is out to get Chen, who is from the Southern Tainan.   This argument is not really valid as the economic problems of backward Southern Taiwan counties are more structural in nature.  Now with a DPP majority in the legislature  this argument goes away.   When the Tsia administration is shown up as not being able to turn around the relative economic advantage of Northern Taiwan Province the Pan Green Solid South will begin to drift to the Pan-Blues almost by default.   

[Hydera]

One positive thing for the Pan-Blues about DPP control of the Legislature on the long run is that it could plant the seeds for a partial Pan-Blue revival in Southern Rural Counties.  One of the reasons why the Southern Counties drifted to the DPP in the late 1990s was the feeling that the KMT administration over the 1980s and 1990s negelcted the economic development of Southern Taiwan Province, especially rural Southern Taiwan Province.   Support for Taiwan Independence was a proxy for envy of  Northern Taiwan Province economic gains from trade with Mainland China  During the disastrous second term DPP Chen administration of 2004-2008, there were swings away from the Pan-Greens in Southern Counties but it was much lower then one would expect and DPP continues to hold the County Magistrate positions in Southern Counties based on the rural vote.  The main reason for this was that DPP Prez Chen was able to make the argument that he could not implement his agenda for Southern Taiwan Province economic revival due to the Pan-Blue majority in the Legislature and that the Northern Taiwan politician dominated Legislature is out to get Chen, who is from the Southern Tainan.   This argument is not really valid as the economic problems of backward Southern Taiwan counties are more structural in nature.  Now with a DPP majority in the legislature  this argument goes away.   When the Tsia administration is shown up as not being able to turn around the relative economic advantage of Northern Taiwan Province the Pan Green Solid South will begin to drift to the Pan-Blues almost by default.   

The signs are starting to be quite ominous for the Pan-Blue Camp. Lots of young Taiwanese are not going to vote for them. Also the more older mainlanders are deceased due to old age and this makes the Pan-Blue camp have less of a base.

Pending the Pipe Dream of China somehow becoming Democratic within the next ten years which would result in the Pro vs Anti China/Reunification issues becoming sanitized and the politics in Taiwan switching to a generic Centre-Left vs Centre-right Spectrum. The future for the Pan-Blue Camp isnt really bright.

[jaichind]

The signs are starting to be quite ominous for the Pan-Blue Camp. Lots of young Taiwanese are not going to vote for them. Also the more older mainlanders are deceased due to old age and this makes the Pan-Blue camp have less of a base.

Pending the Pipe Dream of China somehow becoming Democratic within the next ten years which would result in the Pro vs Anti China/Reunification issues becoming sanitized and the politics in Taiwan switching to a generic Centre-Left vs Centre-right Spectrum. The future for the Pan-Blue Camp isnt really bright.

What you say above is a totally possible future.  But it is not a necessary future.  Yes, the Youth vote went heavily for the Pan-Greens this election and has been trending Pan-Greens for a couple of election cycles already.  On the other hand part of that is a one off related to the  周子瑜 (Chou Tzu-yu) incident the day before the election.  All polling done on the last day before the election and after it pretty much confirmed that the  周子瑜 (Chou Tzu-yu) incident swung around 4%-5% of the vote which mean that without the  周子瑜 (Chou Tzu-yu) incident Tsai was going to win around 50%-51% of the vote.  But note that among the youth the swing was 16% or so.  This is actually very similar to the 2004 election 319 incident where President Chen was shot and wounded the day before the election.  Polls done on the day before and after the election confirmed the incident swung around 4%-5% toward Chen giving him a close 50.1-49.9 victory.  Again, there the 319 incident seems to swung the youth vote around 16%-17%.  This trend reverted to the norm in the 2004 Legislative elections  a few months later.

It is totally possible that the Tsai DPP regime can rule in way that makes some of these shifts permanent, but it is totally possible it will not, just like 2004.  And if we are talking about trends, yes the youth vote today could mean the population as a whole could lean Pan-Greens tomorrow.  But on the flip side, the voting population is getting more urban which leans Pan-Blues which implies that the future will trend Pan-Blues.  Both trends are bogus because people can shift their voting pattern as they age or bring their old partisan loyalties to new urban centers.   As for Mainlanders, they are their decedents that identify themselves as such are now less than 8% of the voting population as of 4-5 years ago.  In 2012 this bloc was so small that poll does not even bother to break them out as a category.  But this fact did not stop the Pan-Blues from winning 2008 in a landslide and winning 2012 in a fairly decisive way.

If the KMT can get past his current transition and wait for the DPP regime to falter as it deals with the "One China" issue with the PRC while trying to maintain economic growth which is now very dependent on the Mainland Chinese market, the KMT domination of local politics will keep a strong farm league for the future.  Of the 22 City/County legislatures, Pan-Blues managed to elect speakers for 18 of them with 4 of them for the Pan-Greens.  And that was based on the disastrous 2014 local elction results or else the KMT domination will be even greater.  This will not bring charismatic leaders like Ma and Tsai  that can win Prez races but will keep the KMT in the game at the legislative and local levels.    

[jaichind]

Also i didn't think that Hsinchu had that much Hokkein speakers since i always considered it mostly demographically Hakka. But turns out that its actually majority Hokkein speaking not Hakka.

Urban Hsinchu and especially Hsinchu City is for sure majority Hoklo.  It is rural Hsinchu which are dominated by Hakkas.  This is expecially true since the 1980s when Hsinchu emerged as a IT powerhouse which attracted a lot of IT personnel from Greater Taipei.   Most of this migration are of course Hoklo.

[jaichind]

I am still doing all sorts of data analysis based on township election data.  In the meantime the first post-election DPP power struggle is already emerging now that the DPP has capture a majority in the legislature.  It involves who will be the Speaker of the House.  There are three DPP candidates vying for the spot and none seems to be backing down.  They are

蘇嘉全 (Su Chia-chyuan) - former County magistrate of Pingdong County (where Prez election Tsai is from) who ran in 2010 for Mayor of Taichung and losing narrowly just like Tsai did for New Taipei City in the same year.  He ran as Tsai's running mate in 2012 in a losing effort.  He was elected on the DPP Party List in 2016 as a MP for the first time.  He is very close to Tsai and is really Tsai's candidate.  But he has never been a MP before so this poses a problem.

陳明文 (Chen Ming-wen) - was a KMT MP and leader of the pro-KMT Lin faction of Jiayi back in the 1990s.  Jiayi County politics up until 2001 was a de facto 3 party system where we had the pro-KMT Lin faction, pro-KMT Huang faction and DPP.  When Chen led his Lin faction to defect over the DPP in 2001 in order to finish off the Huang faction it lead to a realignment in Jiayi County where Chen became the dominate politician in Jiayi politics.  Chen was then DPP county magistrate for Jiayi County then handed that role to another Lin faction politician and he resumed being an MP.  His main selling point is that is that he can deliver the votes for the DPP in Greater Jiayi.  He could also be a bridge toward working with the KMT since his Lin faction still contains some KMT members, including his own brother. 

柯建銘 (Ker Chien-ming) - Founding member of DPP and a MP since 1992 representing Hsintsu City which tilts Pan-Blue.  Has deep roots in the DPP caucus and things equal should win the largest support in the DPP caucus if it was a free and fair vote.

The issue emerging is that Tsai clearly wants Su but the DPP legislative caucus seems to prefer Ker.  There were some attempts to work out a deal to prevent a DPP civil war by getting a consensus candidate which failed and it was decided that there will be a DPP caucus vote.  Ker is pushing for such a vote since he would most likely have the advantage although the pro-Tsai MPs might converge on Su while the non-Tsai bloc in the DPP might split the vote between Ker and Chen.  Tsai is still trying to talk Ker and Chen to back down which seems possible for Chen and unlikely for Ker.  A last minute move seems to be the powerful New Tide faction of the DPP seems to have moved to back Su instead of Ker.  In theory there will be a vote tomorrow in the DPP caucus but behind the screens talks are continuing.  If Ker and Chen back down before of pressure from Tsai and a result of arm-twisting of DPP MPs it could create friction on the long run between DPP caucus and Tsai. 

[jaichind]

I am mostly done with my township by township analysis and will be posting various interesting aggregate data.   Label each township with different tags.  Each township is labeled "Urban" "Semi-urban" or "Rural."  Also I do PVI labeling as well at the township level.   I call all townships where it is Pan-Blue 2016 PVI +6 or higher "2016 Deep Blue", 2016 PVI +6 to PVI O I call "2016 Light Blue", 2016 PVI 0 to -6 I call "2016 Light Green" and I call 2016 PVI -6 or lower "Deep Green."

It has been the trend that the population shifts over the last couple of decades has been more favorable to Pan-Blues.  Meaning the "Deep Blue" and "Light Blue" townships tend to gain in terms of relative population.  We see the same thing this time around as well.
          
                                                       2012 to 2016                 1996 to 2016
                                                     Voter roll growth              Voter roll growth
"2016 Deep Blue" townships                4.46%                           30.11%  
"2016 Light Blue" townships                5.65%                           44.66%
"2016 Light Green" townships             3.33%                            32.23%
"2016 Deep Green" townships             2.03%                            19.72%

Here the trend is clear.  Blue townships, especially "Light Blue" which are usually are Northern Urban centers is continuing to gain relative population while Green townships,  especially "Deep Green" which are usually Southern rural townships, is losing relative population.  The demographics of PVI tends to be in Blue's favor in terms of trend and this seems to continue in 2016.

Of course the pan-Blues were beaten badly.  As I mentioned before this seems to be a function of the collapse of Pan-Blue turnout where around 25% of the Pan-Blue voting bloc did not show up at the polls.  Looking at turnout numbers seems to indicate this

                                                       2012 turnout          2016 turnout           fall
"2016 Deep Blue" townships                73.49%                 64.62%               -8.87%
"2016 Light Blue" townships                74.79%                 66.74%               -8.05%
"2016 Light Green" townships              75.23%                 67.46%               -7.77%
"2016 Deep Green" townships              73.88%                 66.13%               -7.76%

The turnout falloff is the largest in Deep Blue regions.  Of course the nature of this Pan-Blue turnout drop off is different in different regions which I will explore further later.   Anyhow this drop-off obviously lead to swings against Pan-Blue which is greater in Deep Blue townships since the turnout drop-off is greater there.
  
                                                       2012 Pan-Blue          2016 Pan-Blue         Swing  
                                                             Vote                        Vote                                                    
"2016 Deep Blue" townships                67.09%                 54.81%              -12.27%
"2016 Light Blue" townships                57.57%                 45.87%              -11.70%
"2016 Light Green" townships              51.35%                 40.41%              -10.91%
"2016 Deep Green" townships              41.84%                 32.35%               -9.49%