Ahead of Taiwan's 2026 local elections, the KMT-TPP camp has split over its failure to agree on a candidate for mayor of Zhubei. The real problem, however, is that the TPP's voter base is shrinking fast — bad news for the opposition camp and good news for the DPP.

• Polling in Zhubei shows that while Ko Wen-je won close to 40 percent of the presidential vote there in 2024, party support for the TPP now stands at just over 10 percent.
• With the white camp's vote sharply reduced, the arithmetic of "blue votes plus white votes equals victory" no longer holds — and from that total one must still subtract those unwilling to switch their vote or who defect to the green camp.
• Warning signs have emerged in six cities and counties — Yilan, Chiayi, Changhua, New Taipei, Keelung and Hsinchu — where once-solid KMT structures could turn into even contests.
• In New Taipei, the key point is that Lee Szu-chuan's ability to absorb white-camp votes has reached its limit; Keelung is already a 50-50 race, where a drop of a few percentage points for the white camp could flip the result.
• The two parties are still making public gestures toward coordination: in Taichung, a gift of "big lemons" — a pun on the phrase — was used to call for a grand opposition alliance, while Tainan unveiled a joint KMT-TPP service centre.

Outlook: If all six battlegrounds fall at once, "blue skies turning green" may be more than a slogan. The central question for the KMT and TPP is no longer whether to join forces, but how many votes will be left once they do.