“Third wave democracies” in East Asia, Taiwan is the successful case in consolidating her democracy. Despite ethnic diversity which previous literatures say is harmful to democratic transition, Taiwan has shown good performance passing the “two turnover test” Samuel Huntington suggested. Peaceful turnover to opposition party, however, accompanied the drastic emergence of national identity issue. This article examines the trend of public opinion on major political issues including national identity during the Chen Shui-bian era. While the consensus on the Taiwanese identity and the preference to the status quo steadily grows, the effort to escalate the ethnic cleavage had been proved to be effective in mobilizing electorates and achieving issue saliency. By analyzing over 2001, 2004, 2008, and 2010 survey data, we find that the effect of ethnicity on national identity has been disappeared while economic of electorate replace the preferences on independenceunification. The materialistic approach looms larger among younger generations.