國民黨在2008年立委及總統大選雖然大獲全勝，從民進黨手中取回政權，但勝選的氣勢卻沒有維持多久，很快地在隔年縣市長選舉中就以「小敗」收場。解釋2009年縣市長選舉結果的觀點不外乎下列兩者：第一、執政黨的支持者冷漠不出來投票，第二、部分原本支持國民黨的選民轉向支持民進黨。而不論是哪一種觀點，所立基的假設皆為：民眾對執政黨的施政評價影響了他們在地方選舉中的投票行為。本研究旨在探討上述假設，認為即便是地方選舉，民眾仍會回溯中央政府的施政表現，並做為其在地方選舉中是否持續支持執政黨的依據。本研究分析選舉前的民意調查資料後發現，民眾對馬英九的滿意度、民眾對中央政策是否影響其個人經濟情況、及民眾對整體經濟情況的評估等三項因素，皆會影響他們的投票意向。總之，本研究發現，「公民複決式」的投票模型適當地解釋了2009年縣市長選舉中的選民行為，即執政者的施政績效對於「期中」地方（次級）選舉中的選民投票行為具有舉足輕重的影響力。

Taiwan’s ruling party, Kuomintang (KMT), handed a loss to the opposition party, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), in the 2009 Magistrate Elections. The conventional wisdom suggests two competing arguments to interpret the election results—while some argued that the KMT’s loss was mainly due to the lack of partisan mobilization within the KMT, some posited that it was because a significant proportion of voters changed their voting preferences from the KMT to the DPP between the 2008 national and 2009 local elections. In fact, both arguments share the same premise: there exists a linkage between the performance of the ruling party (in the central government and its electoral prospect in local elections. Specifically, the performance of President Ma has a substantial impact on the 2009 local election. This study utilizes survey data to verify such premise. Our data analysis shows that a voter’s assessments on President Ma’s job performance as well as on general and personal economic conditions affect his/her voting intention. In other words, we found that the “referendum voting model,” in which voters caste their votes in midterm elections on a basis of their evaluations of the ruling party, properly explains voting behavior in Taiwan’s midterm elections such as the 2009 local elections.