President Moon's Approval Rating at 33.4%... Lowest Since Taking Office [Realmeter]

Positive 33.4% vs Negative 62.9%
People Power Party, Highest Since Inception...39.4%

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] A public opinion poll revealed that President Moon Jae-in's approval rating for his administration hit its lowest point since taking office during the first week of April, when the April 7 by-elections were held.

According to Realmeter, which conducted the survey on behalf of YTN from April 5 to 9, President Moon's approval rating (positive evaluation) was recorded at 33.4%, down 1.2 percentage points from the previous week's aggregate. This is the lowest since the current administration began. The previous low was 34.1% in the third week of March.

Meanwhile, the disapproval rating rose 0.5 percentage points from the previous week to 62.9%, setting a new high. The previous high was 62.5% in the fourth week of March.

The gap between positive and negative evaluations was 29.5 percentage points, which was outside the margin of error and marked the largest gap since the Moon administration started.

By region, Gwangju and Jeolla (53.6%) saw the largest drop in approval rating, falling 7.4 percentage points compared to the previous week. Following were Daegu and Gyeongbuk

(17.0%), and Incheon and Gyeonggi (33.6%), where approval ratings fell 3.9 percentage points and 1.1 percentage points respectively from the previous week. However, Daejeon, Sejong, and Chungcheong (36.0%) saw a 2.5 percentage point increase.

By political affiliation, the non-affiliated group (12.9%) experienced a significant drop of 11.9 percentage points in approval rating, while the Justice Party (37.7%) and the Democratic Party of Korea (82.1%) also saw declines of 5.7 percentage points and 2.4 percentage points respectively compared to the previous week.

Party support ratings showed the People Power Party rising 0.3 percentage points to 39.4%, and the Democratic Party of Korea increasing 1.6 percentage points to 30.4%. The gap between the two parties was 9.0 percentage points, with the People Power Party maintaining a lead outside the margin of error for four consecutive weeks. Other parties included the People’s Party at 8.0%, Open Democratic Party at 4.8%, and Justice Party at 3.3%.

The survey contacted 43,755 voters aged 18 and over nationwide, with 2,514 completing the response, resulting in a 5.7% response rate. The sampling error is ±2.0 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. For more details, refer to the Central Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.