Lee Jae Myung's Approval Rating at 59.7% Rebounds After Three Weeks of Decline; Gap with DPK and People Power Party Widens Further

[The Financial News] A poll has found that President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating for his state affairs has stopped falling after three weeks and edged up slightly.
According to a survey conducted by Realmeter on behalf of Energy Economy Newspaper on the 4th and from the 6th to the 8th among 2,007 adults aged 18 and older nationwide, 59.7% of respondents said Lee was doing a good job. That was up 0.2 percentage points from the previous week.
Lee's approval rating had reached a post-inauguration high of 65.5% in the third week of April, then fell for two consecutive weeks before rebounding in this survey. The negative rating rose 0.7 percentage points from the previous poll to 35.7%, while 4.6% said they did not know.
Realmeter said, "Economic tailwinds such as the KOSPI Composite Index breaking through the 7,500 level and a record current account surplus drove the rise," but added that "political turmoil, including conflict over the special counsel investigation into manipulation charges and the collapse of the constitutional amendment proposal, offset the gains, leaving only a slight increase from last week."
Realmeter also surveyed party support among 1,006 adults nationwide aged 18 and older on the 7th and 8th.
The results showed the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) at 48.7% and the People Power Party at 30.9%. The Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP) recorded 3.2%, the Progressive Party 2.2%, and the Reform Party 3.5%. The undecided share stood at 8.5%.
The DPK rose 0.1 percentage points from the previous week, holding in the high 40% range, while the People Power Party fell 0.7 percentage points and remained in the low 30% range for the seventh straight week. The gap between the two parties widened by another 0.8 percentage points, from 17.0 points to 17.8 points, keeping it outside the margin of error for 14 consecutive weeks.
Realmeter said of the DPK's support rating, "Government economic achievements, including the KOSPI hitting a new high, had a positive effect. However, repeated verbal gaffes within the party and political instability, including the standoff between the ruling and opposition parties over the special counsel investigation into manipulation charges, appear to have offset those gains, leaving the rating largely unchanged from the previous week."
On the People Power Party, it said the decline was due to continued political conflict, including backlash over the special counsel investigation into the withdrawal of indictments, its boycott of the constitutional amendment vote, and filibusters.
Both surveys were conducted by automated phone response using mobile phones. The margin of error for the presidential approval survey was plus or minus 2.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, with a response rate of 4.2%. The party support survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level and a response rate of 3.7%.
More details are available on the website of the Central Election Poll Deliberation Commission.

[email protected] Sung Min-seo Reporter