President Moon's Approval Rating Falls Below 45% After 12 Weeks [Realmeter]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] President Moon Jae-in's approval rating for his administration has fallen below the 45% mark for the first time in 12 weeks. This decline is attributed to public anxiety over the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (Wuhan pneumonia) and the Me Too controversy surrounding the ruling party's recruited talent, Won Jong-geon.

According to Realmeter, which conducted a public opinion survey commissioned by tbs on the 28th and 29th, the positive evaluation of President Moon's administration dropped by 2.1 percentage points from the previous week's aggregate to 44.9%, the agency announced on the 30th. Meanwhile, the negative evaluation rose by 0.5 percentage points to 50.4%. The gap between positive and negative evaluations was 5.5 percentage points, which is outside the margin of error (±2.5 percentage points).

Notably, negative evaluations increased across all ideological groups. This is analyzed as a result of growing national instability due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. Additionally, the decline among the 20s and 30s age groups was pronounced, likely influenced significantly by the 'Won Jong-geon Me Too controversy.'

In terms of party support, the Democratic Party of Korea recorded 38.4%, down 2.2 percentage points from the previous week's aggregate, falling below the 40% threshold. The Liberty Korea Party also dropped 2.3 percentage points to 29.8%, failing to maintain the 30% mark.

The Justice Party remained at 4.4%, the same as the previous week, the Bareunmirae Party fell by 0.2 percentage points to 3.9%, and the New Conservative Party decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 3.8%. Following these were the Our Republican Party at 1.8%, the Alternative New Party and the Party for Democracy and Peace at 1.4%, and the Minjung Party at 1.3%.

This survey contacted 31,251 voters aged 18 and over nationwide, with a final response of 1,508 people, recording a response rate of 4.8%. The sampling error is ±2.5 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. For more details, refer to the Central Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.

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