The 2026 race for Yunlin County chief in Taiwan is shaping up as a dead heat, with both front-runners carrying a weakness that could decide it.

• The DPP's Liu Chien-kuo and the KMT's Chang Chia-chun are running neck and neck, with two independents also in the field.
• Liu lost last time by more than 50,000 votes because he was strong in the inland townships but weak along the coast.
• He has spent four years working the coastal towns, but his low-key style still struggles against the KMT's tighter local machine.
• Chang inherits strong backing from her aunt, the popular sitting county chief Chang Li-shan, but faces grumbling that the job keeps passing around one family.
• She began rolling out her own policy platform in March to build an identity separate from the family name.

Outlook: The winner will likely be whoever pulls in undecided voters first — Liu by uniting a split party, Chang by proving she is more than a family heir.