[AKY Poll] Democratic Party Majority Supports Lee Jae-myung, Possible Presidential Election Win Without Runoff

Democratic Party Primary Rules Target 'Support Base' Voting
In This Survey, Over 50% of Democratic Supporters Choose Lee Jae-myung

In People Power Party, Hong Joon-pyo Steadily Rises to 22.1%
Party Support Rate Hits 33.8%, Highest This Year

COVID-19 Increase and Media Arbitration Act Burden Cause President Moon and Democrats to Decline Together

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporters Joo-yeon Oh and Hyun-joo Lee] In a survey on the suitability of next presidential candidates by political party, while the rise of latecomers within the parties was notable, party supporters tended to rally around the leading candidate. In the Democratic Party, Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung received the choice of over 50% of Democratic Party supporters, and in the People Power Party, former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl maintained his lead. However, Representative Hong Joon-pyo attracted attention by receiving over 20% support among all conservative opposition candidates.

On the 24th, Asia Economy commissioned Win-G Korea Consulting to conduct a public opinion poll from the 21st to 22nd targeting 1,024 voters aged 18 and older nationwide (100% mobile phone virtual numbers, automated response). In the Democratic Party, Governor Lee was caught in negative issues such as the controversy over food critic Hwang Gyo-ik’s personnel and the controversy over filming a tteokbokki YouTube video during the Coupang logistics center fire, resulting in a 3.2 percentage point drop from the previous survey (August 7-8) to a support rate of 30.1%. Former party leader Lee received 22.5%, up 1.9 percentage points, narrowing the gap between the two candidates from 12.7 to 7.5 percentage points. However, looking at the support rate among Democratic Party supporters, a majority chose Governor Lee, indicating a significant lead for him on the party’s primary stage. The Democratic Party’s presidential primary is decided by a voting body composed of delegates, party members, and the public. According to party rules, if no candidate receives a majority in the main primary, a runoff vote is held between the top two candidates. In this survey, 52.6% of Democratic Party supporters chose Governor Lee, while 32.4% selected former leader Lee.

In the conservative opposition, Representative Hong Joon-pyo of the People Power Party has seen his support steadily rise. In a survey on the suitability of conservative opposition presidential candidates, former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl had the highest support at 28.8%, followed by Representative Hong Joon-pyo at 22.1%, former Representative Yoo Seung-min at 10.8%, former Board of Audit and Inspection Chairman Choi Jae-hyung at 6.4%, People’s Party leader Ahn Cheol-soo at 5.8%, former Jeju Governor Won Hee-ryong at 3.2%, Representative Ha Tae-kyung at 2.7%, and Representative Yoon Hee-sook at 2.3%. Former Prosecutor General Yoon’s declining trend has stopped and turned upward, while former Chairman Choi’s support dropped 2.7 percentage points compared to the first week of August. Notably, Representative Hong’s support rose by 4.8 percentage points, surpassing Yoon’s increase of 4.5 percentage points. Among People Power Party supporters only, Yoon’s support was 59.4%, far ahead of Hong’s 14.2%, but Hong received relatively high support from Democratic Party (30.5%) and Open Democratic Party (31.8%) supporters.

President Moon Jae-in’s positive evaluation of his administration and the Democratic Party’s party support both declined simultaneously. The positive response that President Moon is ‘doing well’ in his administration was 44.3%, down 1.5 percentage points, while the negative response that he is ‘not doing well’ rose 3.1 percentage points to 54.2%. Accordingly, the gap between positive and negative evaluations, which had been around 5 percentage points in the last three surveys, widened to 9.9 percentage points in this survey. ‘Don’t know’ responses were 1.6%.

The Democratic Party’s support dropped 2.5 percentage points to 34.0%, while the People Power Party’s support rose 3.7 percentage points to 33.8%, marking the highest level this year. The gap between the two parties narrowed from 6.4 percentage points to 0.2 percentage points, closing to a ‘decimal point difference’ for the first time in about two months since the fourth week of June. The increase in COVID-19 cases and the forced passage of contentious bills such as the amendment to the Media Arbitration Act are interpreted as factors affecting the president’s and parties’ approval ratings. In this survey, when asked about the perception of the Media Arbitration Act amendment, 46.4% responded that it was ‘to prevent damage caused by fake news,’ while 41.6% said it was ‘a means to suppress the media.’

This survey was conducted by Asia Economy commissioning Win-G Korea Consulting targeting voters aged 18 and older nationwide from the 21st to 22nd, with 1,024 respondents and an overall response rate of 7.0%. The survey method was wireless ARS using 100% mobile phone virtual numbers, and the sample was extracted with weighting by gender, age, and region based on the resident registration population as of the end of January 2021 (cell weighting). The sampling error is ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. Detailed survey information can be found on the Win-G Korea Consulting website or the Central Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.