Few would have expected the Taipei mayoral race to become one of the most hotly watched races of the 2026 local elections in Taiwan. With incumbent Mayor Chiang Wan-an of the Kuomintang (KMT) facing off against Puma Shen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), polling shows Shen doing unusually well for a city that is traditionally seen as a KMT stronghold.
Another reason the campaign is attracting attention: the post is often a stepping stone to the presidency. Past presidents Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou both previously served as Taipei mayor.
Taipei is generally understood to be a KMT bastion, given that many of those who came with the KMT to Taiwan in the wake of the Chinese Civil War settled in Taipei. To date, Chen Shui-bian is an outlier as the only DPP mayor of Taipei in history. While Ko Wen-je won the mayorship in 2014 as an independent who had the backing of the pan-Green camp, he was seen as having benefited from his independent political reputation, which did not necessarily link him with the DPP.
Shen running for Taipei mayor, then, was not initially seen as likely to be successful. If anything, Shen was originally seen as having agreed to be something of a political sacrifice for the DPP.
Shen is one of the DPP’s most visible legislators, and it would be a poor look for the DPP to field someone obscure to run in Taiwan’s capital. Taipei, after all, often sets the tone for other political races. Yet Shen was seen as unlikely to win and as having potentially signed up himself for a disastrous race.
In 2022, the DPP’s Taipei mayoral candidate lost by over 10 percentage points. The 2018 race was even more humiliating for the party, with DPP candidate Pasuya Yao finishing a distant third behind both Ko Wen-je and the KMT’s choice.
Shen is an unusual candidate for historically pan-Blue Taipei. Shen, originally an academic specializing in criminology, is best known as the founder of the Doublethink Lab and the Kuma Academy. The Doublethink Lab is Taiwan’s best-known disinformation research organization, while the Kuma Academy is one of the foremost civil defense groups that regularly conducts training in skills that might be useful in the event of a Chinese invasion or other catastrophes. Given this background, Shen is mostly publicly known for being tough on China-related issues.
Shen also played a prominent role in the eruption of the 2024 Bluebird Movement, which was partly sparked by anger over Shen being injured during a scuffle in the legislature.
Running for Taipei’s mayor seat, then, is mostly a test of whether Shen might have a political life beyond serving two terms as a party list legislator. Though Shen is still in his first term, if he did well or at least put a dent in Chiang Wan-an’s vote count, the DPP would likely keep him in rotation for future positions, as one of the party’s more visible younger politicians. Shen is currently 44.
Not many expected Shen to actually be competitive in the race. Survey polls in Taiwan that are not conducted by academic research institutions are largely partisan and are released in order to impact, not reflect, election results. With that caveat in mind, some polls show Shen within a few points of Chiang.
Shen’s campaign has focused on anti-incumbent sentiment by depicting Chiang Wan-an as a handsome but ineffectual figure who does not know about policy and largely relies on aides to provide him with information. Shen’s strong performance during interviews has also benefited him. One interview with a pan-Blue-leaning talk show host went viral due to Shen’s ability to casually answer the host’s questions about a range of policy issues with detailed proposals, without having to rely on notes or other information.
Likewise, analysts have noted that Shen only attacks the Chiang mayoral administration in areas where his own campaign has a detailed counterproposal for how to carry out city governance, thus avoiding a purely negative campaign.
Chiang was also recently hit by two political controversies. The first involved Chiang’s son winning a Taipei city-funded scholarship for a student exchange program with the United States, despite being the mayor’s son and a U.S. citizen. Subsequently, Chiang faced allegations of nepotism, leading Chiang to state that his family would not accept the scholarship.
The second controversy, which is decidedly more bizarre, involved Chiang being found to have discarded a ceremonial stalk of sugarcane he was gifted during a temple ceremony. Chiang threw the stalk by the side of the road after the event ended. Even if an aide was sent to retrieve the discarded stalk, the act was seen as reflecting arrogance and disregard for the common people.
Chiang’s struggle in the polls is surprising. He has sometimes been criticized for being a bit stiff during public speaking events, as well as for gaffes, such as being unable to remember a number of English terms during a speech at Harvard University in a clip that went viral online. Nevertheless, Chiang is usually seen as a leading politician of the KMT. As one of its most prominent younger politicians at age 47, he’s often considered a future presidential contender. Chiang has also differentiated himself from other KMT members by being more progressive on social issues such as gay marriage.
Chiang’s trips abroad during his administration – to Singapore, China, the U.S., France, and South Korea – were largely seen as signaling presidential ambitions, aiming to pad out his diplomatic credentials. Chiang is expected to throw his hat into the ring for the KMT’s 2028 presidential nomination.
With the unexpected rise of Shen in the polls, the DPP will be aiming to do as much damage to Chiang’s future electoral chances as possible.
It is also probable that backlash against Chiang reflects public dissatisfaction with political dynasties. Chiang is the son of former legislator John Chiang – not to be confused with the similarly named former KMT chair, Johnny Chiang, a politician of the same generation as Chiang Wan-an.
Chiang is also the supposed illegitimate grandson of Chiang Ching-kuo and great-grandson of Chiang Kai-shek. Both Chiang Wan-an and his father changed their last names from Chang to Chiang when they decided to seek higher office. Though some questions about the veracity of this claim have been raised – Chiang has refused DNA testing as an invasion of his privacy – the claim that he is descended from Chiang Kai-shek is generally accepted in Taiwanese politics. Notably, Chiang has more commonly referred to Chiang Ching-kuo in public messaging so as to steer clear of controversy about the authoritarian period under Chiang Kai-shek’s rule.
Because of his lineage, backlash against Chiang as the heir of a political dynasty has sometimes erupted into the open, even within the KMT. When passed over for political advancement within the KMT, for example, legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin – another youth politician in the KMT – lashed out at being passed over because her “last name is not Chiang.”
If Shen were, in fact, successful in taking Taipei, it would be a huge political upset. It is probable that talk of Shen as a future presidential contender would materialize immediately. In a similar case, when the KMT’s Han Kuo-yu was successful in winning the Kaohsiung mayorship in 2018 – in what is traditionally considered DPP heartland – this catapulted him to become the KMT’s presidential candidate in 2020
It also led to the political narrative that the DPP’s traditional grip over southern Taiwan was dramatically weakening. Even though Han was removed as mayor in a recall in 2020, the KMT has continued to place high hopes on winning away the DPP’s southern power base.
The DPP has clearly had its eye on making inroads into Taipei for some time. Indeed, the party has often fielded the younger, progressive politicians that emerged in the wake of the Sunflower Movement in downtown Taipei districts that are seen as having rising numbers of upwardly mobile, politically progressive young professionals.
If Shen were to win Taipei in an upset, this would probably be for the same reason that the DPP lost Kaohsiung to the KMT in 2018: city residents growing tired of what they perceived as complacency in governing a presumed electoral safe zone.
