As Puma Shen (沈伯洋), the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) candidate for Taipei mayor, rides a surge of support his campaign calls the "Yang Wave," a play on the last character of his Chinese name, the pressure is not falling on incumbent Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) alone. Inside the smaller opposition Taiwan People's Party (TPP), officials are alarmed that the wave is also sweeping away their young supporters ahead of the 2026 Taiwan local elections on November 28.
The polls help explain the worry. A survey commissioned by the Xinmin Cross-Strait Research Association and released on October 20 put Shen ahead 50.3% to 33.3%. A Z Media poll released two days later found that 54.4% of voters who backed independent Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊) in the 2022 mayoral race, a group dominated by TPP sympathizers, now support Shen, against 34.1% for Chiang.
Where Taiwan's Third Party Supporters Are Heading
Huang, a former TPP legislator who won about 340,000 votes as an independent in 2022, has said that the true third force is not any one party. Her longtime friend, DPP legislator Wang Shih-chien (王世堅), argues that most TPP supporters, known as "little grass," will back Shen because Chiang has been lifeless and overly cautious in office.
TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) dismissed the Xinmin poll, saying the association is funded by United Microelectronics Corp. founder Robert Tsao (曹興誠) and is not worth the time to analyze. But Chen Chih-han (陳智菡), director of the TPP's legislative caucus, admitted she does not think TPP supporters will necessarily refuse to vote for Shen.
According to TPP officials familiar with the party's grassroots, about 30% to 40% of its supporters at its peak have already drifted to the DPP. They may vote not only for Shen but also for Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧), the DPP's candidate for New Taipei mayor, and some are even shifting their party loyalty. In other words, whether Chiang wins or loses, the TPP is bleeding support.
Why Supporters Of Ko Wen-je Are Warming To The DPP
The shift is striking given recent history. TPP founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), revered by many supporters, was detained and held incommunicado from September 2024 over the Core Pacific City corruption case until he was released in September 2025. During that time, the TPP repeatedly led supporters into the streets to protest what it called judicial persecution by President Lai Ching-te's (賴清德) government, while DPP aligned online influencers branded Ko "corrupt" and the party treated Huang Kuo-chang as its top enemy.
TPP insiders cite three reasons Shen appeals to its young supporters. First, although Shen has been controversial in the past and has clashed with Huang Kuo-chang, his public image since entering the race has become neutral and friendly, and he has even praised Ko's eastern gateway redevelopment project from Ko's time as mayor. Voters have short memories, one TPP figure said. Chiang, meanwhile, has alienated young people over controversies involving school lunches, rat infestations and a police search of a gay bar. TPP supporters, who say they vote for the person rather than the party, were also angered when Chiang campaigned for Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩), the KMT's candidate for Hsinchu County magistrate, who has fallen out with the TPP.
Second, Shen spends most of his time talking about policy. He has been taking questions from young people on soapboxes in the street and plans to invite overworked young civil servants and teachers to air complaints about the city government. His young campaign team is strong online, with activities such as "crew member cards" and inviting residents to draw his ballot number, which give young voters a strong sense of participation.
Most important, the insider said, Shen himself has largely avoided negative personal attacks and has said almost nothing harsh about Ko or Huang Kuo-chang. TPP supporters tend to be rational centrist voters drawn to reasoned, moderate messages, and the image Shen now projects is exactly what they like. With the TPP fielding no mayoral candidates of its own in Taipei or New Taipei, Ko and Huang have no battleground to rally supporters, and some young voters are drifting.
How The DPP Borrowed From Ko Wen-je's Playbook
A source in Shen's camp said the campaign addresses all Taipei residents and does not treat TPP supporters as a separate group, but that Shen's calm, policy focused style may appeal to rational, pragmatic voters. Shen has, however, deliberately refrained from criticizing Huang Kuo-chang and Ko. President Lai, who also chairs the DPP, told an internal meeting that despite Shen's momentum, Chiang still has plenty of "health points" left, so Shen should "do good deeds and say good words," avoid negative campaigning and avoid mistakes.
Shen's campaign calls its supporters "little water droplets" that merge into a current. When Lai campaigned for Shen in early October, he said Shen had broken away from negative campaigning and was "changing Taiwan's election culture." Some in the TPP have noticed that the "water droplet" idea closely resembles the party's own "little grass" concept, which holds that individual blades together form a meadow, and that Lai's line about changing election culture echoes Ko's longtime pitch of treating elections as a social movement to change political culture. In effect, the slogans and ideas Ko once borrowed from the DPP to attract young people are quietly being taken back.
How The TPP Is Fighting Back Online
Huang Kuo-chang saw the danger early. Around September, as Shen's campaign began to gain traction, he ordered party departments to step up their online efforts with more graphics and short videos, and required the legislative caucus to hold three press conferences a week, all to hold on to the TPP's internet based support against what insiders call Shen the "traffic monster."
He also asked departments, candidates and legislators to livestream more and come up with fresh, entertaining content that could break out of their usual audience. Huang himself joined in. On Teachers' Day, he suddenly declared himself "Professor Huang" again and livestreamed a two hour lecture on civil procedure law. Besides his regular Monday night livestream, he has begun hosting prominent political guests on Thursdays, including Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) and Chiang.
Why A Health Insurance Fight Has Shaken Supporters' Faith
Despite these efforts, the TPP has struggled to regain control of the agenda. One party official pointed to the recent passage of a bill waiving national health insurance premiums for people aged 65 and over. After it cleared the legislature, pro DPP online influencers attacked the KMT and TPP for ignoring generational fairness and adding to young people's burden. The TPP pointed out that most DPP local candidates had made the same promise, but it continued to be piled on online.
Ko himself was baffled, because waiving premiums for seniors was part of his own healthcare equality platform in his 2024 presidential run. He quickly tried to reassure supporters that "healthcare equality knows no party colors," but the damage was done. Party insiders say it is not only young online critics and the DPP leaning young activists known as "bluebirds" who are attacking. Some TPP supporter groups, influenced by what insiders call cognitive warfare, have begun questioning whether Ko's original proposal made sense.
A Movement Built On Loyalty Faces A Crisis
Many TPP supporters have been devoted to Ko with almost religious fervor. During his presidential campaign, one supporter carried a 7 kilogram Ko balloon on foot around Taiwan for a month. After the election, supporters gathered outside the TPP caucus office at 7:30 a.m. to read his autobiography aloud. While Ko was detained, some held overnight sit ins outside the Tucheng Detention Center, and many wept openly at a video Ko recorded before his detention.
That supporters are now questioning Ko, once seen as someone who could do no wrong, shows how serious the situation is, party insiders said. Senior officials note that the TPP, as a small party, already struggles to match the two major parties in media attention, and the Yang Wave has made things harder still. Even Ko's rebuttals now carry less weight with the public, and the beating the party took over the health insurance issue is a major warning sign.
With few TPP candidates running in 2026, the party cannot rely on campaigns to fire up its base as the bigger parties can, one senior official said, and now even its young supporters are being pulled away. Ko is troubled but has yet to find an answer. Huang Kuo-chang has had some success, but he will eventually run out of big name guests to share the stage with. Unless the TPP finds another way to break out, the official warned, the wave that is saving the DPP could become a tsunami that drowns the TPP.
