President Lee's Approval Rating Drops to Record-Low 37%... Negative Evaluations Dominate for Both Party Leaders

On the 18th, President Lee Jaemyung's job approval rating was found to have reached its lowest point for the fourth consecutive week. In evaluations of party leaders—such as Democratic Party of Korea leader Kim Minseok and People Power Party leader Jang Donghyuk—negative assessments were reported to outweigh positive ones.

Yonhap News Agency

According to a public opinion survey conducted by Gallup Korea from September 15th to 17th, the approval rating for President Lee's job performance fell by 1 percentage point from the previous week to 37%, while the disapproval rating rose by 5 percentage points to 56%. These figures mark the lowest approval and the highest disapproval ratings since President Lee took office.

The primary reason cited for positive assessments was "diplomacy" at 26%, followed by "economy and people's livelihood" at 11%, and "overall doing well" at 6%. As for negative assessments, "real estate policy" topped the list at 20%, followed by "appointments" at 16%, and "economy and people's livelihood" at 9%.

In terms of party approval ratings, support for the Democratic Party of Korea rose by 2 percentage points to 40%, while that for the People Power Party fell by 2 percentage points to 27%. Both the New Reform Party and the Innovation Party recorded 3%, and the Progressive Party stood at 1%. Voters without party affiliation accounted for 25%. Regarding party leader performance, Kim recorded a positive rating of 30% and a negative rating of 48%, while Jang recorded a positive rating of 21% and a negative rating of 61%.

Within the Democratic Party of Korea's support base, Kim received a positive rating of 54%, outpacing the negative rating of 27%. In contrast, among People Power Party supporters, negative assessments of Jang (49%) exceeded positive ones (39%), resulting in a reversal within his own party's support group.

This survey was conducted via telephone interviews with 1,002 respondents nationwide. The margin of error is ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. For more details, refer to the website of the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.