Did Vice-Presidential Candidates Decide the 2024 Presidential Election in Taiwan?

The literature on elections and voting in the United States demonstrates that vice-presidential (VP) candidates, or “running mates,” can have a significant electoral impact. However, this three-part analytical framework has not been extended to other presidential democracies to explore whether and how VP candidates’ influence may vary elsewhere. We do so in this paper by analyzing their impact on Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election. Our analysis finds that the VP candidates generally had statistically significant but modest direct and indirect effects on intended presidential vote choice. We discuss further opportunities to explore the impact of VP candidates in presidential democracies.