[AKYUNG Poll] Lee Jun-seok Overwhelmingly Leads as People Power Party Leader Candidate

Surpassing Na Kyung-won to Take 2nd Place with 44.4%

[Asia Economy Reporter Naju-seok] Former Supreme Council Member Lee Jun-seok, who passed the preliminary round of the People Power Party leadership election in first place, is experiencing a significant surge.

When asked who is suitable as the next leader of the People Power Party, 44.4% chose former Supreme Council Member Lee. He easily outpaced former lawmaker Na Kyung-won, who came in second with 16.5%. Lee advanced to the final round as the top candidate in the preliminary round. Since then, the "Lee Jun-seok phenomenon" has become a hot topic, expanding his support rate.

In a public opinion poll conducted by Asia Economy through Win-G Korea Consulting on the 15th and 16th of last month (targeting 1,019 voters nationwide aged 18 and over, with a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, using wireless ARS with 100% mobile phone virtual numbers), Lee’s support rate was 17.7%, closely matching Na’s 16.5%. Between the previous and current surveys, a "cutoff" was announced, narrowing 12 candidates down to 5. During this period, Lee’s support rate rose by 26.7 percentage points.

On the afternoon of the 30th of last month, at the Kim Dae-jung Convention Center in Chipyeong-dong, Seo-gu, Gwangju, Lee Jun-seok, the candidate for the party leader of the People Power Party, is presenting his policy speech at the joint rally for party leader and supreme council member candidates from Gwangju, Jeonbuk, Jeonnam, and Jeju.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

As lawmakers Kim Woong and Kim Eun-hye, who sparked an early wave among first-term lawmakers in the preliminary round, were eliminated in the cutoff, most of the votes that had gone to them appear to have shifted to Lee. Compared to the first survey, the support rates for candidates Joo Ho-young, Hong Moon-pyo, and Cho Kyung-tae slightly decreased, which seems related to the "vote concentration" phenomenon toward Lee. Na’s support rate remained the same in both the first and second surveys. The proportion of respondents who said they had no preferred candidate or did not know was similar in both surveys.

This can be seen as a kind of bandwagon effect, where interest and support gather around the candidate with higher support rates. Lee showed strength among people in their 20s and 60s, as well as men, while relatively weaker among women and those aged 70 and above. In the final round, where party members’ opinions are heavily reflected (party member voting 70%, general public opinion poll 30%), Lee also appears somewhat advantageous. Looking at the results only among People Power Party supporters in this survey, Lee’s support rate was 54.8%, followed by Na at 26.3%, Joo at 8.6%, Hong at 1.2%, and Cho at 1.1%.

This survey was conducted by Asia Economy through Win-G Korea Consulting targeting voters aged 18 and over nationwide on the 29th and 30th of last month, with 1,045 respondents and an overall response rate of 10.4%. The survey method was wireless ARS with 100% mobile phone virtual numbers, and the sample was extracted with weighted values by gender, age, and region based on the resident registration population as of the end of January 2021 from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (cell weighting). The margin of error is ±3.0 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. For detailed survey information, please refer to the Win-G Korea Consulting website or the Central Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.