Taiwan President Lai Ching-te has told his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) not to let recent polls go to its head, warning at a closed-door party meeting on October 28 that its candidate in the Taipei mayoral race, the marquee contest of the 2026 Taiwan local elections, has not yet won, Storm Media has learned.
"Don't look at the polls and start acting one way or another. We haven't won yet," Lai, who also chairs the DPP, told its Central Standing Committee, speaking in Taiwanese. The warning came as several surveys showed DPP legislator Puma Shen closing in on, and in some cases overtaking, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), who is seeking a second term on November 28.
Lai Says Taipei Is Still Just Out Of Reach
According to people who attended the October 28 meeting at DPP headquarters, Lai said that the party's own experts and officials had concluded that "in Taipei, we actually still haven't won. We are a little short." He urged members not to be swayed by the stream of numbers published by Taiwanese media outlets such as ETtoday and the United Daily News.
Lai pointed to the party vote in the 2024 presidential and legislative elections, which showed KMT supporters outnumbering DPP supporters in the capital, and noted that some publicly released surveys had not disclosed how their samples were weighted. With the Taiwan People's Party (TPP), the island's third largest party, fielding no mayoral candidate this time, he added, nobody can say with confidence whether centrist and younger voters will break toward the DPP or the KMT.
A DPP campaign aide described the race as hand to hand combat, with both parties' core voters already back in the fold. Because Taipei's electorate tilts against the DPP, the aide said, even a dead heat in the polls means Shen has not won: "We can't sleep easy yet."
Lai Has Steered Shen's Campaign Since September
Lai handpicked Shen, a former academic whom Beijing has sanctioned as a "diehard Taiwan independence separatist," to take on Chiang. Shen's supporters call his campaign the "Yang Wave," a play on the last character of his Chinese name, and his street motorcades drew striking crowds through September.
On September 30, Lai visited Shen's campaign headquarters, located beneath the DPP's central offices in Taipei. The two men put on matching floral shirts and orange scarves and climbed aboard Shen's campaign truck, the "Yang Wave," to launch what the campaign called its "Great Yang Wave Plan." Since then, people familiar with the matter say, Lai has followed the race closely and moved quickly to close any gaps the opposition could exploit.
Party Headquarters Warns Candidates Against Overconfidence
The October 28 remarks were not a one off. At each of the four DPP Central Standing Committee and Central Executive Committee meetings held in October, Lai reminded members that they could neither grow complacent nor lose heart, however the numbers moved. "Keep your heart steady and move forward with firm steps," he said, again in Taiwanese.
Storm Media has also learned that DPP headquarters sent a letter on October 16 to its city and county chapters, instructing them to tell candidates to stay humble and remember that "an arrogant army is bound to lose." The letter said a temporary lead in the data was no reason to relax, and that actual votes were what counted.
Taipei Polls Point In Opposite Directions
Lai's caution reflects how divided the polling in the 2026 Taiwan local elections has been. An October 20 survey commissioned by the Xinmin Cross-Strait Research Association put Shen ahead 50.3% to 33.3%, and a Taiwan Strategy Research Association poll released on November 2 gave him 52.6% to Chiang's 35.3%.
Other surveys favor the incumbent. An ETtoday Poll Cloud online survey taken after the October 31 televised debate had Chiang at 52.0% and Shen at 40.7%, while a TVBS telephone poll conducted the same day showed Chiang leading by 4 points. Full methodology for these polls is available in Storm Media's earlier report.
Lai Reins In Pundits Pushing Attack Politics
Lai also used the October 28 meeting to deliver a pointed message to party figures who appear regularly on political talk shows. According to attendees, he said Shen is the "commander" of the campaign, that everyone should respect what Shen says and support his team's efforts, and that those going on television should be cautious and avoid mocking opponents.
The remarks came shortly after a pro DPP social media influencer who hosts a political talk show on SET, a Taiwanese cable network, posted that elections cannot be won on policy alone. "Elections involve a division of labor. The candidate talks policy and stays positive, but someone still has to do the dirty work," the host wrote, adding: "Let Puma Shen be the cool one. We'll do the dirty work."
Shen has repeatedly said he wants to run a positive campaign focused on city policy, and DPP Secretary General Hsu Kuo-yung has issued similar appeals. One party insider said some television regulars simply had not listened. "Shen said it, and you didn't listen. Shen winked at you, and you still didn't get it. So Lai said it to you directly."
The 2025 Recall Defeat Still Haunts The Ruling Party
The insistence on humility is also an effort to shake off what party insiders describe as post traumatic stress from the 2025 mass recall campaign against KMT lawmakers. Before the vote, Lin Chun-hsien, a DPP legislator from Tainan and a close Lai ally, predicted that 10 KMT legislators would be removed. Instead, not a single recall succeeded, a rout Taiwanese media summed up as 32 to 0.
"The recall looked hot at the time," a party insider said, noting that internal data had suggested at least three KMT lawmakers would lose their seats. That experience is why Hsu has repeatedly reminded the party that big rally crowds do not equal real votes. Shen, whom his rivals have cast as a central figure in the recall drive, also risks alienating swing voters if the campaign turns bitter.
In a radio interview in mid October, Shen acknowledged that everyone carries some of that trauma, but argued that the recall's mobilization was different from a mayoral race, and that voters this time want a candidate who stays positive and keeps talking about policy.
Asking the party to follow its "commander" also protects Shen, since whatever DPP figures say now could ultimately land on him. A DPP official in Taipei said Shen had worked step by step to turn the ridicule over the recall's failure into support. "In an election, you can't expect everyone to love you," the official said. "But if nobody keeps cursing you, your chances of winning are better."
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