The year-end election is approaching, and the outside world has recently paid close attention to the Taipei mayoral election. Regarding whether the "ocean current" may reverse the election situation that the outside world was not optimistic about, Du Shengcong, a communication scholar at Mingchuan University, published an article to share that after integrating the age structure of the population in each district and the previous mayoral elections since 1994, The analysis of the blue and green votes at the local level, 7 waves of real-person sample polls, and nearly 50,000 online public opinions on 6 platforms emphasizes that in order for the current to become a force to change the results, it must cross two thresholds at the same time: first, the turnout really increases, and second, to convince people who originally did not support Shen Boyang. Du Shengcong bluntly said that after all, the election is not about who has more people, but who has more votes.
Du Shengcong posted a post on Facebook with the title "Can ocean currents overthrow Taipei? Let's first look at the threshold of voter turnout." He pointed out that the most popular word in the Taipei mayoral election in the past two months was "ocean currents." Wherever Shen Boyang goes, night markets, markets, and parks are crowded. On October 11, the first car sweep of the "Taipei Ocean Current" started from Datong, Zhongshan. It was reported that more than 2,000 motorcycles accompanied it, and the number of people online at the same time exceeded 60,000. Green camp supporters were excited, while some in the blue camp ridiculed it as an "artificial ocean current".
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Du Shengcong emphasized that after all, the election is not about who has more people, but who has more votes. How much are ocean currents worth? This can be calculated. "We integrated 4 types of data: the age structure of the population in each district, the district-level blue and green votes in previous mayoral elections since 1994, 7 waves of real-person sample polls, and nearly 50,000 online public opinions on 6 platforms, to establish a turnout situation model for 456 districts in Taipei City, and estimated three voting rates of 65%, 67.5%, and 70%."
Du Shengcong pointed out that the conclusion can be made first. The ocean current is real, but its power is overestimated; it can flip several districts, but it is difficult to flip the entire Taipei alone. He also put forward 4 points of analysis for this purpose.
First, Du Shengcong explained that the essence of ocean currents is "who is brought out to vote." Political science has been discussing the effects of turnout for 40 years. American scholars have long pointed out that the level of turnout itself does not determine victory or defeat. The key is whether the "extra people" think differently from those who would have voted. If the ocean current has a meaning, it will bring people into the voting booth who originally did not vote much and are more supportive of Shen Boyang.
Du Shengcong said that according to the crosstab of the poll, about 44% of voters who did not vote in 2022 supported Jiang Wanan, which was significantly lower than the overall 53%. Calculated, for every 1 percentage point increase in the city's voting rate, there were about 20,000 more votes. Among them, Shen Boyang got about 11,000 more votes and Jiang Wanan got about 8,800 more votes. Chiang's lead shrank by about 2,400 votes. The turnout increased from 65% to 70%, and Chiang's lead shrank from about 96,000 votes to 84,000 votes. Chiang still led in all three scenarios.
Du Shengcong bluntly said that there is a key point here that is often overlooked: the effect of ocean currents is equal to the "ocean current intensity" multiplied by the "voter turnout increase." Both are indispensable. No matter how large the crowds are, if the turnout on polling day does not really rise, the current will only be lively. What is even more ironic is that if the turnout is low, most of the absentees will be marginalized voters, and the result will be more favorable to Chiang.
Secondly, Du Shengcong also pointed out that relying on mobilization alone, the threshold for a comeback is astonishingly high. How strong do ocean currents need to be? We used Internet public opinion to estimate the "strongest ocean current": among the posts on the Internet that explicitly stated their stance, 65.6% supported Shen, while only 44.3% supported Chiang.
Du Shengcong analyzed that assuming that the preferences of new voters are like this group of the most enthusiastic netizens, the city-wide turnout rate required for a tie between Jiang and Chen is about 80%. The Taipei mayoral election has never exceeded 71% in the past two decades. The last time it exceeded 80% was Chen Shui-bian versus Ma Ying-jeou in 1998.
Du Shengcong said bluntly, in other words, within the actual possible range of 65% to 70%, mobilization alone cannot turn the tables. What can really change the outcome is "persuasion": converting voters who originally supported Chiang. The calculated threshold is about a 3-point shift in overall support, roughly equal to the poll's own margin of error. This also shows that the outcome of this election still depends on the judgment of the median voter, not just the heat on the streets.
To Shengcong also shared the history of turnout. The Taipei mayoral election had a high turnout of 80% in the 1990s, an era when the blue-green showdown was the fiercest and political parties were most mobilized; after 2002, the average for the six terms was only about 68%, and in 2022 it is 67.7%. As the election heats up this year, it is not impossible for the turnout rate to return to 70%, but if we want to go higher, we need a reason that makes most Taipei people feel "compulsory to vote." What the ocean current does so far is make supporters more enthusiastic; there is no evidence that it makes apolitical people move.
Third, the ocean currents will really change in North Taipei. Du Shengcong emphasized that the difficulty of the city's comeback does not mean that ocean currents have no effect. Broken down into administrative districts, the differences are huge. The turnout rate increased from 65% to 70%, and the five districts of Shilin, Beitou, Zhongshan, Datong, and Wanhua together contributed more than 60% of the city's vote gap reduction; for every 1 percentage point increase in Shilin, the vote gap change was nearly 14 times that of Wenshan. Wenshan was almost unaffected, and 5 percentage points only reduced Chiang's lead by 153 votes.
We can see it more clearly by looking at the constituencies of members. When Beitou Shilin's voting rate was 65%, Chiang only led by about 800 votes. When the voting rate reached 67.5%, Shen's lead would flip; Zhongshan Datong flipped when the voting rate reached 70%. Coincidentally, these two areas are the first and last stops of the "Great Ocean Current" car sweep. If the Shen camp wants to convert crowds into votes, the main battlefields will be in North Taipei and the old urban area; while the Chiang camp only needs to hold Da'an Wenshan, Songshan Xinyi, and Neihu Nangang to offset the ocean current.
Fourth, Internet voice volume cannot be viewed as polls. Du Shengcong said that the last thing to be reminded is the trap of online public opinion. On the Internet, Shen Boyang expressed his support far more than Jiang Wanan, but the person who posted the message was not the epitome of the voters, and the data was also affected by the platform's export limit. We have conducted tests: as long as online public opinion accounts for 5% of the weight in the support estimate, Chiang's lead will be reduced by about 20,000 votes out of thin air, and the impact will be greater than the turnout itself. Treating online voice volume directly as opinion polls is the most common mistake in this election campaign.
Du Shengcong pointed out that what also needs to be faced honestly are the limitations of the model itself. The key figure "Non-voters are more supportive of Shen" comes from a sub-sample of only one to two hundred people in the poll. The results of the two surveys differed by more than 8 percentage points. If there are major events before the election, or the weather is bad on the polling day, the number may be rewritten. Therefore, these estimates are not predictions of victory, but a "condition map" that tells us under what conditions the election will move in which direction.
Du Shengcong concluded at the end of the article that the ocean current is the most distinct political phenomenon in the 2026 Taipei election, and it has brought suspense back to an election that was originally considered one-sided. But the numbers tell us that for the ocean current to become a force that changes the outcome, it must cross two thresholds at the same time: first, the turnout really increases, and second, it convinces people who originally did not support Shen Boyang. The former decides the ownership of Shilin, Beitou and Datong, Zhongshan, and the latter decides who takes over the city government. Du Shengcong also emphasized that there is still more than a month until the voting day. The answer to how far the ocean current can flow lies not in the crowds, but in the voting booths.
