Taiwan’s incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen won a landslide victory in Saturday’s election. Tsai of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) routed challenger Han Kuo-yu of the Nationalist Party (KMT), winning with 57.13 percent of votes to Han’s 38.61 percent. A third party candidate, James Soong, notched 4.26 percent.
Tsai’s margin of victory was even greater than her initial election victory in 2016, when she handily dispatched the KMT’s Eric Chu 56.1 percent to 31 percent. The absolute number of votes Tsai received was also far greater – in 2016 she won with 6.89 million votes, whereas on Saturday she garnered 8.17 million. According to Taiwan’s state-run Central News Agency, “Tsai’s vote total was the highest ever recorded for any candidate in a presidential election in Taiwan.”
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