This study adopts an ideational approach to examine the demand side of populism in Taiwan, using micro-level data from the 2016 and 2020 waves of the Taiwan Election and Democratization Study (TEDS). Beyond assessing conventional determinants of populist attitudes identified in Western and Latin American contexts, it investigates how Taiwan’s unique geopolitical cleavage—preferences on independence versus unification—shapes populist orientations. Applying Niou’s (2005) multidimensional method of conditional preferences, we identify seven orientations on this issue, along with three positions for those with no preference. Logit and tobit estimations reveal that Taiwanese populists exhibit a diverse sociodemographic profile, experiencing economic insecurity, low political competence, and expressing dissatisfaction with democracy. Populist attitudes are located on the extreme preferences of the unification-independence spectrum, as well as among those who maintain inconsistent stances on this issue. Generational dynamics are also considered. While cohort differences alone show no autonomous effect, a conditional effect emerges, most notably among individuals with the strongest pro-unification orientation on the cross-strait issue. Among these individuals, the association with populist attitudes is stronger among younger cohorts than older ones. For other cross-strait orientations, the translation of preferences into populist attitudes does not vary systematically across generations. Beyond Taiwan, these findings show that populist attitudes can arise independently of conventional left-right politics. They also underscore the central role of sovereignty-related preferences in shaping populist orientations and provide insights for other geopolitically contested contexts.