The chance of incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen seeking for re-election was heavily crippled after the Democratic Progressive Party's devastating defeat in the 2018 local elections, where the DPP lost seven of the 13 cities and counties it previously held. The DPP’s share of the vote also fell from 56 to 39 per cent since the 2016 presidential election. Tsai resigned as the party chairwoman after the defeat. However, Tsai kept trailing behind in the polls as the surveys found most Taiwanese would not support Tsai in the 2020 election but would support PremierLai Ching-te, who also resigned from the premiership for the electoral defeat in January 2019. On 19 February 2019, Tsai Ing-wen told CNN in an interview she will run for re-election, despite facing calls from senior members of her own party to not seek re-election. Before her announcement, Tsai had received a bump in the polls after she gave a robust speech saying that her people would never relinquish their democratic freedoms, as a response to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping's speech in January describing Taiwan's unification with the mainland as "inevitable". On 18 March, Lai Ching-te registered to run in the party's presidential primary, saying that he could shoulder the responsibility of leading Taiwan in defending itself from being annexed by China. This is the first time in history where a serious primary challenge has been mounted against a sitting president.
Candidates
Schedule
The primary was originally planned to be completed on 17 April 2019, and was postponed on 27 March for one week in name of President Tsai's one-week visit to three Pacific island countries. On 10 April, the DPP Central Executive Committee decided again to postpone the primary until after 22 May 2019. Expressing deep regret, Lai Ching-te claimed that this delay denied the value of democracy, and vowed to continue his campaign until the end of the primary. Former Minister of National DefenseMichael Tsai renounced his DPP membership on 12 April to protest the party's decision to delay this primary. On 19 April, Tsai in a radio interview called on Lai to withdraw from the primary, saying things would be different, if Lai would agree to cooperate and a find solution through coordination. Lai responded by saying that he would not withdraw from the race. Amid speculation of party chairman Cho Jung-tai might resign from his post due to pressure from Tsai to cancel the primary, Lai warned the party would be very close to "evil" if it happens. On 29 May, the DPP Central Executive Committee announced that cell phone sampling would occur in the primary polling alongside landline sampling, each accounting for a 50-percent share of the polling results. The primary polling occurred between 10 June and 13 June.
Timeline
Results
Results of the primary were announced on 13 June. Tsai defeated Lai by approximately 8.6 percentage points, the result was 35.68% for Tsai and 27.48% for Lai. She was formally nominated as the Democratic Progressive Party's presidential candidate on 19 June 2019.
