Rebuilding Korea Party Support Hits 8.1%... "Highest in Two Years" [Asia Business Daily-Realmeter Poll]

President Lee's approval rating rises 1.6 percentage points to 36.9%
People Power Party at 40.2%, Democratic Party of Korea at 38.3%

President Lee Jae-myung’s job approval rating edged up slightly after a week, reaching 36.9%. Support for the Rebuilding Korea Party, which had been rising since October, surpassed 8%.

According to a regular opinion poll conducted by Realmeter at the request of The Asia Business Daily and released on Nov. 2, the president’s job approval rating stood at 36.9%, up 1.6 percentage points from the weekly average for the previous week (the fourth week of October). The poll surveyed 2,515 voters aged 18 or older nationwide over five days, from Oct. 26 to 30, using an automated response system and randomly generated mobile phone numbers. The margin of error was ±2.0 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, and the response rate was 3.0%.

According to a party preference poll conducted over two days, from Oct. 29 to 30, among 1,005 voters aged 18 or older nationwide, using an automated response system and randomly generated mobile phone numbers, support for the People Power Party stood at 40.2%, down 2.4 percentage points from the previous week’s poll. Support for the Democratic Party of Korea rose 2.3 percentage points to 38.3%. The margin of error was ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, and the response rate was 3.0%.

The rise in support for the Rebuilding Korea Party stood out in this poll. The party’s support was around 3% at the time of the local elections in June, but began to climb in October and reached 8.1% in this poll. This was its highest level since the first week of November 2024, when it stood at 9.0%.

One point to watch is the shift in opinion among progressives. In this poll, 20.5% of respondents who described their political views as progressive said they supported the Rebuilding Korea Party. That was the second-largest share among progressive respondents, after the Democratic Party of Korea (62.9%). In the poll conducted in the first week of October, only 11.4% of respondents identifying as progressive said they supported the Rebuilding Korea Party, meaning that support nearly doubled in a month. Some Democratic Party supporters are believed to have shifted their support to the Rebuilding Korea Party. Over the same period, support for the Democratic Party among progressive respondents fell by 10.6 percentage points, from 73.5% to 62.9%.

Yonhap News Agency

Jang Hoon, head of the Data Communication Research Institute at Embrain Research, said, "It appears that some of the Democratic Party’s existing supporters are showing a tendency to support the Rebuilding Korea Party." He added, "For the Rebuilding Korea Party’s support to become firmly entrenched, it needs a solid 'dam' to keep its supporters in place. Whether Jo Kuk, head of the party’s Innovation Policy Research Institute, can serve that role is key."

For more details about the poll, see the website of the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission.

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