By KHT Staff. AI-regenerated image.
KAOHSIUNG — A newly published poll shows DPP Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) leading KMT candidate Ko Chih-en (柯志恩) by 8 percentage points, but recent polling in the race has varied widely, making the result one data point rather than a clear picture of the November election.
The poll, commissioned by Storm Media and conducted by Shan Shui Public Opinion Research, put Lai at 39.6% support and Ko at 31.6%.
Commentator and psychiatrist Shen Cheng-nan (沈政男) told the China Times that the result suggests Ko’s support has been rising and Lai’s falling, because a previous Shan Shui poll commissioned by The Storm Media in late April showed Lai ahead 47% to 30.7%, a gap of 16.3 percentage points.
Shen argued that because both polls were conducted by the same polling company, the narrowing gap likely reflects a real shift in the race rather than only polling-house differences.
Others say that interpretation should be treated cautiously, as recent polls have produced much wider or much narrower margins.
A Mirror News poll conducted by Dadi Public Opinion Research from June 8 to 9 put Lai at 45.1% and Ko at 24.8%, a 20.3-point gap. The survey had 1,116 valid samples and a margin of error of plus or minus 2.93 percentage points.
By contrast, a TVBS poll commissioned by Ko and conducted by the TVBS Poll Center put Lai at 40.3% and Ko at 39.7%, a gap of just 0.6 percentage points. The poll also found 19.9% of respondents undecided.
The spread between those results highlights how unreliable polling can be, and this latest poll is better read as evidence that the race may be tightening.
