It is widely held that the south Taiwan is the traditional strong hold of the Pan-Green camp in Taiwan’s elections. This study shows this is simply not true. This study finds that the Pan-Green camp began to earn higher support rate in south than in north only between 1986 and 1989, and even in south Taiwan the Green camp began to earn higher support rate than the Blue camp only after 2001. This study suggests that ethnic mobilization by the Green camp after the lift of martial law in 1987, heavier presence of Minnan Taiwanese, and the contextual effect of ethnical concentration converge to create the current strong hold in south for the Green camp.

Furthermore, this study shows that even up to now the so-called Pan-Green strong hold in south Taiwan is true only in the level of county magistrate election and above. In the local elections below the level of county magistrate the Green camp still fares poorer that the Blue camp. This discrepancy, or the ticketing-splitting among Green supporters, probably can be explained by the relative underdevelopment of Green camp’s local political machine that is vital to personal connection needed in Taiwan’s local elections.