北高兩市市長與市議員選舉結果出爐，在台北市，代表中國國民黨參選的郝龍斌如預期的擊敗代表民主進步黨參選之謝長廷，當選為台北市長。在高雄市，民進黨候選人陳菊以些微差距，打敗兩度角逐的國民黨候選人黃俊英，跌破許多人眼鏡。兩大黨都把選舉結果定義為平盤。在大環境不利於民進黨的情況下，民進黨能止跌回穩，還是靠民進黨過去在直轄市執政的政績。雖然國民黨把選舉定調為對陳水扁信任投票或對馬英九的清白投票，顯然並沒有完全奏效。兩大黨之外的其他小黨都是輸家，在大黨競爭激烈之下，選民的投票越來越策略。不管在市長選舉或市議員選舉，小黨的空間越來越小。

The results of the 2006 Taipei and Kaohsiung Mayorial and City Council Elections are: in Taipei, Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Hao Long-bin defeated Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Frank Hsieh to win the mayoral election as expected; while in Kaohsiung, DPP candidate Chen Chu defeated KMT candidate Huang Chun-ying by merely 1,114 votes, whereby surprising many polling experts. Both KMT and DPP claimed that it was an even battle. As the result of a series of scandals revealed by the media, the overall political atmosphere was unfavorable for DPP candidates running in the elections. The reason why DPP did not crash as many experts predicted was because of it’s good performance in the city governments. Although KMT tried to make this election a “no confidence” vote on Chen Shuibian or a vote on Ma Ying-jeou’s integrity, this strategy did not really work. In fact, the small parties are the real losers in these elections between the two major political parties, because under such a competitive environment voting is becoming increasingly strategic. Whether it is in the mayoral or city council elections, smaller parties increasingly find themselves with less space to survive.