Simon Chang

Simon Chang's reputation has always rested on the label of "technocrat." A civil-engineering scholar by background, he was a professor at National Taiwan University and director of the National Center for High-performance Computing, held management posts at Acer and Google, and briefly served as premier as an independent in 2016; in the 2020 election he was the running mate of KMT presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu, and in 2022 he was elected mayor of Taoyuan for the KMT, ending eight years of DPP rule in the city. That résumé has kept him relatively clear of ideological battles, and voters mostly judge him on his performance in office: in a TVBS survey in December 2025, his job-approval rating reached 61% against 18% disapproval, higher than in two surveys in 2024. Criticism has focused mostly on his style and pace: the green camp mocks him as the "mayor of Xindian" whose heart is not in Taoyuan, while DPP candidate Huang Shih-chieh accuses him of "lying flat" and letting city projects stall, pointing to the successive collapse of plans to build a hospital in partnership with universities and the city's switch to building a municipal hospital on its own to question his efficiency and funding plans. Only two candidates have registered for the Taoyuan mayoral race, so Huang, a former legislator and political deputy minister of justice, faces him in a straight blue-green contest. Within the KMT camp, he and Johnny Chiang in Taichung belong to the same mild-mannered type that appeals to centrist voters; the question this re-election bid must answer is whether his reputation for steady governance can outweigh criticism that he is detached and slow.