Male Millennials Do Not Pledge Loyalty to 'People'... They Act According to 'Practicality'

Men in their 20s React Sensitively to Pledges and Messages
Yoon, Lee, and Ahn Circulate Within a Week

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] Presidential candidate camps are experiencing fluctuations in the wavering votes of ‘Idaenam’ (men in their 20s). Recently, there has been a tendency for votes to lean toward Yoon Seok-yeol, the People Power Party’s presidential candidate, but it is notable that voter preferences change frequently depending on the policy pledges from each camp.

According to the detailed results of the Research View multi-candidate survey (commissioned by UPI News, conducted from the 11th to the 13th, with 1,000 respondents aged 18 and older, 95% confidence level ±3.1 percentage points), Yoon’s support rate among men in their 20s rose sharply from 38% in the previous survey to 63% this time. In contrast, Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party candidate, dropped from 18% to 13%.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Yoon also attracted the Idaenam votes of Ahn Cheol-soo, the People’s Party candidate. Although Ahn’s overall support rate fell slightly by 1 percentage point from 13% to 12%, his support among men in their 20s was halved from 32% to 13%.

Lee Jun-seok, the leader of the People Power Party who has focused on strategies to attract Idaenam votes, shared these results on Facebook, writing, "As predicted, the 20s male voter sentiment is being captured with even stronger intensity than the 72.5% (exit poll support rate among men in their 20s in last year’s Seoul mayoral election)."

However, if Yoon and Ahn unify and the presidential election is contested as ‘Lee Jae-myung vs. Ahn Cheol-soo,’ Ahn’s support rate among men in their 20s is shown to reach 72%. This suggests that men in their 20s may vote for the People’s Party candidate even if it is not Yoon.

Considering these results, it is more appropriate to interpret that Idaenam voters move according to ‘pragmatism’ rather than repeatedly shifting between absolute support and defection from Yoon. Eom Kyung-young, director of the Era Spirit Research Institute, said, "Seeing the 20s vote swing from Yoon to Lee to Yoon within a week shows how sensitively they respond to policies or messages targeted at them."

In a Korea Research survey (commissioned by KBS, conducted from the 7th to the 9th with 1,000 men and women aged 18 to 39, 95% confidence level ±3.1 percentage points), the most important factor for men in their 20s when deciding on a candidate was policies and pledges (39.3%), rather than party affiliation (6.0%) or the candidate’s family and acquaintances (1.0%).

For detailed information related to opinion polls, please refer to the Central Election Poll Deliberation Commission.