| Summary: | 碩士 === 東吳大學 === 政治學系 === 107 === In recent years, young voters have received a lot of attention. Political parties and candidates try to win support from young voters. After the 2014 Mayoral Elections, how young voters play a role in electoral politics has been widely discussed. Some argue that Tsai Ing-wen’s victory in the 2016 Presidential Election was due to young voters. This research aims to examine the above argument by studying young voters’ voting behavior. It analyzes the key factors that affecting young voters’ voting choices from the long-term factor, i.e. party identification and the short-term factors, i.e. candidate evaluation. This study also includes important political attitudes such as attitudes toward cross-strait relations. The findings show that young voters display different political attitudes from non-youth voters in the 2016 presidential elections. The multivariate model confirms that young voters did not contribute to Tsai Ing-wen’s votes. Instead, it is the political party identification and candidate evaluation are the key factors in determining the 2016 Presidential Election. To further discuss the voting behavior of young voters, this study finds that the pan-blue youth voters have a higher possibility of voting for the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen. Pan-blue youth display a cross-party voting behavior. The possible reasons for them to vote for Tsai Ing-wen includes with less stronger party identification and giving Tsai Ing-wen a better evaluation than Chu Li-luan. This finding also echoes the discussion in this study that the youth is under the process of political socialization in forming their party identification. Their party identification is not as stable as older voters. Therefore, when it comes to voting, it is candidate evaluation that play a more important role than party identification for young voters, especially for pan-blue young voters.
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