With just over 100 days to go until Taiwan's year-end local elections, the Kuomintang is binding the four cities and counties of the capital region into a single campaign bloc — a morale boost for the blue camp and a source of pressure on the green camp.

• Lee Si-chuan, the KMT's candidate for New Taipei mayor, has said he will join forces with the mayors of Taipei, Taoyuan and Keelung to fight the campaign.
• Party insiders say the aim is to replicate the "joint Taipei–New Taipei–Keelung–Taoyuan campaign" model behind the party's sweeping 2022 win, with Taipei and New Taipei at its core.
• The main record-based pitch is integration of the metropolitan living area: from the NT$1,280 monthly pass to the TPASS commuter monthly pass, and on to cross-city rail construction.
• Grassroots mobilisation is already under way: in more than 20 of New Taipei's 29 administrative districts, support groups have formed spontaneously, and religious support associations have been launching one after another.
• Lee said he has covered the entire municipality, written residents' requests into his platform, and will govern according to those needs from the day after he is elected.

Outlook: transport and infrastructure issues promoted jointly by the four cities look set to become the blue camp's central theme, leaving the green camp needing to find an opening of its own in the capital region.