Cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People's Party in Hsinchu County has formally collapsed — bad news for KMT county magistrate candidate Hsu Hsin-ying, and an opportunity for the Democratic Progressive Party.

• The TPP has ordered its party officials and elected representatives not to appear at campaign events for Hsu Hsin-ying, with violators facing possible expulsion from the party.
• The trigger for the breakdown was a failure to agree on a candidate for Zhubei mayor, compounded by the KMT caucus's abstention on the euthanasia referendum in August; mutual trust between the two parties has collapsed.
• KMT legislators had originally planned to travel to Zhubei as a group to campaign for the TPP's Chiu Chen-yuan, but were blocked by the local party branch in Hsinchu County, further angering Huang Kuo-chang's camp.
• Hsu Hsin-ying now faces unhealed rifts from the party primary internally and an exodus of TPP supporters externally, losing ground with both her base and the "little grass" voters.
• Chiu Chen-yuan has opened fire, questioning the county government's stalled flood-control work, while the county government has hit back that its construction progress is above the average for non-special municipalities. The two sides are now in open conflict.

Outlook: Ahead of the November 28 vote, if the KMT and TPP cannot stop the bleeding in other counties and cities, the race for Hsinchu County magistrate could hand an easy win to the DPP's Cheng Chao-fang.