Taiwan's Taitung county race is shaping up as a tight two-woman fight, with a long-safe KMT stronghold suddenly in play — good news for the DPP, bad news for the ruling local machine.

• Four candidates registered, but the real contest is KMT council speaker Wu Hsiu-hua against DPP legislator Chen Ying.
• Wu has decades of family-built local organization behind her, plus control of the county party branch, giving her strong turnout muscle.
• A farm-road corruption case involving her family has raised clean-government doubts, and her camp is playing it down rather than fighting back loudly.
• Chen Ying is Indigenous and well known in tribal villages, which make up more than a third of the vote — the bloc the DPP has never cracked here.
• The DPP has closed ranks behind her, with local heavyweights appearing at her registration, ending years of internal splits.

Outlook: The next two months turn on whether the corruption cloud pushes swing voters away from Wu faster than her ground game can lock them in.