After the collapse of cooperation between the Taiwan People's Party and the Kuomintang in Zhubei, relations between the two parties still appear to leave room for manoeuvre on the surface — an ambiguous signal for opposition integration ahead of the year-end local elections.

• Huang Kuo-chang posted a photo of a dinner with KMT legislators Lo Chih-chiang, Hsu Chiao-hsin and Hung Meng-kai, along with Zhubei mayoral candidate Chiu Chen-yuan, stressing their camaraderie fighting side by side in the legislature.
• The breakdown stemmed from a failure to settle on a Hsinchu County magistrate candidate: the TPP said the agreed outcome was for Hsu Hsin-ying to run for magistrate and the white camp to contest the Zhubei mayoralty, while the KMT and Hsu Hsin-ying denied this.
• The TPP has announced that elections at all levels in Hsinchu County are no longer bound by the blue-white 2026 cooperation agreement, and criticised Hsu Hsin-ying for going back on her word.
• The Democratic Progressive Party has moved into the gap to court the white camp, with Cheng Chao-fang appearing alongside Ko Wen-je and Chiu Chen-yuan in succession, warming the green-white atmosphere.
• Polling on the three-way Zhubei race shows the KMT's Wu Hsu-chih narrowly ahead of the DPP's Tseng Sheng-kai, with Chiu Chen-yuan third for now; Ko Wen-je said bluntly that Hsinchu and Yilan are disaster areas.

Outlook: If the blue and white camps cannot clean up the aftermath in Zhubei, the mood of division could spill over into New Taipei, Yilan and other counties and cities, handing the DPP an advantage in several constituencies it had previously been expected to struggle in.