A fight over who is giving up on Hualien: the Taiwan People's Party admits it cannot run a county chief candidate, while the DPP says it is going deeper at the local level instead.

• TPP leaders Huang Kuo-chang and Ko Wen-je backed their candidate for Hualien city mayor and jabbed that the DPP has "given up on Hualien" by nominating for neither city mayor nor county chief.
• Ko admitted openly that the TPP does not have the strength to contest the county chief race, so it is putting everything into the city mayor seat.
• The DPP's Hualien branch hit back, saying it nominated 21 people this year — councillors, township representatives and village heads — its highest number ever.
• Branch head Chen Ching-feng said no party member was willing to run for the top jobs and nobody can be forced, so the plan is to change Hualien from the grassroots up.

Outlook: Hualien's local races look set to be a TPP push for the city mayor's office against a DPP betting on volume at the bottom of the ballot.