Opinion | When Populism Can’t Beat Identity Politics

The 2020 general elections were inevitably going to be a tougher challenge for Mr. Han, partly because questions of national identity would naturally become salient again. But by then D.P.P. had also figured out a way to strike at Mr. Han’s credibility as a populist: It began to argue that it was Ms. Tsai, not Mr. Han, who was working hard for the people and that Mr. Han was no “shumin” at all.

The D.P.P. portrayed Mr. Han as detached, a mayor more interested in running for president than in solving his city’s problems. The government camp claimed that he failed to contain an outbreak of dengue fever, that he skimped on overseeing flood-relief efforts to attend a lavish dinner — and even that he slept until noon. Ms. Tsai, instead, was credited with numerous accomplishments on bread-and-butter issues: higher wages, lower taxes, more spending on popular social welfare programs and efforts to prevent the swine flu epidemic raging through much of Asia from reaching Taiwan. When the media reported that Mr. Han had bought and sold luxury apartments in Taipei, the D.P.P. accused him of being a real estate speculator who profited from his political connections.

Public trust in Mr. Han plummeted over the course of 2019. According to surveys conducted by Tai Li-an, one of Taiwan’s most respected pollsters, and published by the news site Formosa, the percentage of respondents who said they distrusted Mr. Han rose from more than 27 percent in February to about 57 percent in November. His support among independent voters withered, from more than 41 percent in February to less than 15 percent in December. Even among supporters of the Kuomintang camp, his base, support dropped from nearly 89 percent to a little more than 66 percent over the same period.

In a Dec. 18 presidential debate, Ms. Tsai drove the D.P.P.’s message home. She mentioned a long list of her administration’s policies to help families with small children, taxi drivers, night-market vendors, small-shop owners, retired farmers and young entrepreneurs. “We have not forgotten them,” Ms. Tsai said of the “shumin.” “We have been working constantly for them, to solve their problems. It is Mayor Han who has forgotten his responsibilities and promises to them.”

Yes, concerns over encroachment by China and threats to Taiwan’s sovereignty were critical in determining this weekend’s election. But the D.P.P. also beat Mr. Han at his own game by convincing voters that he is a lousy populist.

Nathan F. Batto is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, in Taipei.