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Young swing voters emerge; regional allegiances weaken
By Kang Seung-woo
The race to succeed President Moon Jae-in as Korea's next president was a closely fought contest in the polls taken more than a week before the election, with both Lee Jae-myung of the liberal ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and Yoon Suk-yeol of the conservative main opposition People Power Party (PPP) having near-equal chances of winning the top job in government.
Based on weekly surveys by Gallup Korea from January to the first week of March, the last day for publication of polls under the Election Law, the too-close-to-call showdown boiled down to several factors, including young swing voters' opinions and declining loyalty from parties' home turfs.
The local pollster has been studying how public opinion trends on the candidates changed through polls conducted on a weekly basis since Nov. 18 and Yoon and Lee were running neck-and-neck in its last published poll, with approval ratings of 39 percent and 38 percent, respectively.
In the lead-up to the election, younger people in their 20s and 30s, who make up roughly a third of eligible voters, were considered the key swing voters who could tip the balance in the election, given that voters in their 40s and 50s are supportive of Lee, while those aged 60 or older favor Yoon.
Although they used to support the liberal side, their frustration over skyrocketing housing prices, economic inequality and the limited job creation under the Moon administration have turned them away from the ruling party.
Taking a closer look at the two age groups, 20-something voters changed their favorite candidate to Yoon, while those in their 30s were found to have more steadily approved Lee.
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In the first week of January, Lee's approval rating was 24 percent to Yoon's 10 percent among people in their 20s due to an internal feud between Yoon and PPP Chairman Lee Jun-seok, but right after putting an end to the strife, Yoon bounced back to maintain the lead by 12 percentage points in the last poll.
On the other hand, Lee's approval had remained over 30 percent from those in their 30s since the fourth week of January to finish with 40 percent in the final poll, compared with Yoon's approval that fluctuated from 20 percent to over 30 percent.
According to the polls, regional allegiances did not seem to work, as Yoon's approval from Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province, traditionally conservative strongholds, was much below the voting rates earned by the party's previous two presidents ― Park Geun-hye's 80.48 percent in 2012 and Lee Myung-bak's 70.97 percent in 2007.
Yoon's approval rating in the regions stood at 42 percent for the first week of January, the first poll taken after the announcement of Park's special pardon on Dec. 24, 2021. Yoon led the investigation into the corruption scandal that removed Park from office.
Since then, his approval rating had increased steadily, managing to reach 62 percent last week.
Lee, who served as Gyeonggi governor until last October, received less support than expected from the nation's most-populous Gyeonggi Province and its neighboring Incheon.
Midway through January, Lee's approval in Gyeonggi and Incheon reached 40 percent against Yoon's 26 percent, but in late January, allegations of his wife's abuse of power and misuse of the government's credit card negatively affected Lee's approval there, allowing Yoon to tie it at 36 percent in the third week of February and eventually lead Lee by 4 percentage points, at 36 to 40 in the first week of March.
Based on the Gallup polls, Lee made a late surge by cutting the deficit from 7 percentage points in the second week of February to 1 percentage point in the last survey, thanks mainly to an uptick in his approval from Gwangju and North and South Jeolla provinces, the DPK's home turf.
With the PPP striving to court voters there, Yoon's support rate, which had remained in the single digits until early February, soared to 18 percent in the third week of the month, followed by 16 percent the ensuing week, raising expectations among the conservative party that their candidate may gain the most-ever votes there in the election. In 2012, Park earned a record 10.32 percent support from the region.
In the wake of the unprecedented support for the PPP candidate, supporters of the DPK there seem to have rallied, with Lee finishing at 74 percent, compared with Yoon's 7 percent.
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