Su Chiao-hui

Su Chiao-hui holds two kinds of political capital: the local base she has built by winning a New Taipei legislative seat three times since 2016, and the imprint of the family name left by her father, former Premier Su Tseng-chang. Su Tseng-chang served as Taipei County magistrate from 1997 to 2004 and remains the last DPP local leader to win an election there; in 2018 he returned to run for mayor of New Taipei and lost to Hou Yu-ih. Now that Hou has served his two terms, the DPP's Central Executive Committee drafted her as its candidate as early as November 2025; unlike Chiu Yi-ying, a fellow female DPP legislator who lost the January 2026 Kaohsiung mayoral primary by less than one percentage point, she was spared a bruising intraparty fight. Her opponent is former Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Shu-chuan of the KMT, backed jointly by the KMT and the Taiwan People's Party, and the two present a sharp contrast: on one side, a 50-year-old lawyer-legislator who leads with childcare and caregiving policy; on the other, a veteran municipal official with an engineering background who has served as deputy mayor of three cities — New Taipei, Kaohsiung and Taipei. Public polls have so far shown each of them ahead at different times, making this one of the most closely watched blue-green contests among the six special municipalities. Her real test is to step out of the "Su Tseng-chang's daughter" frame and get New Taipei voters to judge her on her own performance.