Negotiations between Taiwan's Blue and White camps over cooperation in the Zhubei mayoral election have broken down once again — bad news for both parties' supporters, and good news for the DPP.

• Former legislator Lin Wei-chou said the two parties had reached a consensus under which the TPP's Chiu Chen-yuan would run for Zhubei mayor and the KMT's Hsu Hsin-ying would run for Hsinchu County magistrate, but both sides promptly denied it publicly.
• Ko Wen-je said bluntly that the KMT's account was "very strange," noting that the basic premise of cooperation is trustworthiness, and that cooperation is impossible if what one says cannot be trusted.
• Accounts within the KMT contradicted one another: Hsu Hsin-ying said the decision was not hers, Wu Hsu-chih said party headquarters had not approached him, and others said Lin Wei-chou's remarks did not count.
• TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang declared that the party would wait no longer and would go its own way, insisting that Chiu Chen-yuan stay in the race to the end.
• The effects of the split are spilling over into other districts, with polling in the New Taipei mayoral race showing Su Chiao-hui ahead of Lee Si-chuan by a narrow margin for the first time.

Outlook: The two parties' candidates are expected to register separately on September 3, making a Blue-White split in Zhubei all but certain; what follows will depend on whether any room for a turnaround emerges when Ko Wen-je and Cheng Li-wun appear together in Hsinchu City.