[Asia Business Daily-RealMeter Poll] President Lee's Approval Rating Falls for Second Straight Week to 35.2%

Democratic Party of Korea 35.5%, People Power Party 41.3%

President Lee Jae-myung’s job approval rating edged down for the second consecutive week, remaining in the mid-30% range. Support for the Democratic Party of Korea also fell sharply, to the mid-30% range.

According to a regular poll for the second week of October, conducted by Realmeter at the request of The Asia Business Daily and released on October 12, the president’s job approval rating stood at 35.2%, down 2.2 percentage points from the weekly tally for the previous week (the first week of October). The survey was conducted from October 6 to 8 among 1,504 voters aged 18 or older nationwide via wireless telephone automated response. The margin of error was ±2.5 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, and the response rate was 2.8%. His disapproval rating was 61.4% (50.5% saying he was doing a very poor job and 10.9% saying he was doing a poor job), up 1.6 percentage points from the previous week’s survey.

A Realmeter official explained, “It appears that the decline in approval was driven by unfavorable developments in personnel, security and real estate, which became focal points in parliamentary audits: controversy over a clash involving Supreme Court Chief Justice Jo Hee-dae and the independence of the judiciary; a security dispute between the ruling and opposition parties over the landmine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ); and rising rents and apartment prices in the Seoul metropolitan area.”

According to the party approval survey, conducted from October 7 to 8 among 1,004 voters aged 18 or older nationwide via wireless telephone automated response, the Democratic Party of Korea’s support fell 7.0 percentage points from the previous week’s survey to 35.5%. The People Power Party’s support rose 2.9 percentage points to 41.3%. Although the difference was within the margin of error, the two parties switched places in the rankings. The Rebuilding Korea Party stood at 6.3%, the New Reform Party at 2.8%, the Progressive Party at 1.2%, other parties at 1.8%, and independents at 11.0%. The margin of error was ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, and the response rate was 2.6%.

For more information about the polls, visit the website of the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission. Starting with the second week of October, Realmeter’s regular weekly poll will be conducted and released at the request of The Asia Business Daily.

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