President Moon's Approval Rating at 62%... Surpasses 60% Mark for the First Time in 1 Year and 6 Months [Gallup]

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] A public opinion poll revealed that President Moon Jae-in's approval rating for his job performance has surpassed 60% for the first time in 1 year and 6 months since the Pyongyang Inter-Korean Summit.

Korea Gallup announced on the 24th that, based on a survey conducted from the 21st to the 23rd targeting 1,001 people aged 18 and older, 62% of respondents gave a positive evaluation of President Moon's job performance. This is a 3 percentage point increase compared to the previous week. On the other hand, negative evaluations dropped by 3 percentage points to 30%.

This is the first time in 1 year and 6 months since the third week of October 2018 (62%) that President Moon's job approval rating has exceeded 60%. His approval rating had risen for seven consecutive weeks until two days before the 21st National Assembly election (42%→59%) and continued to rise this week after the election.

This week, the approval and disapproval ratings by age group were as follows: 18?29 years old (hereafter '20s') 57% approval, 31% disapproval; 30s 70% approval, 24% disapproval; 40s 72% approval, 24% disapproval; 50s 63% approval, 32% disapproval; 60 and older 52% approval, 36% disapproval. By political orientation, 90% of progressives and 62% of moderates evaluated the president's job performance positively, while 56% of conservatives viewed it negatively.

The top reason for positive evaluations was 'COVID-19 response' (55%), followed by 'doing their best/working hard' (7%) and 'generally doing well' (6%). COVID-19 related responses have ranked first as the reason for positive evaluations for 11 consecutive weeks.

Reasons for negative evaluations included 'lack of solutions to economic and livelihood issues' (26%), 'focus on North Korea relations/pro-North Korea stance' (8%), and 'inadequate COVID-19 response' (7%).

Party support stood at 43% for the Democratic Party of Korea, 22% for the United Future Party, 7% for the Justice Party, 4% for the Open Democratic Party, and 3% for the People’s Party. Compared to the previous week, support for the Democratic Party and Justice Party rose by 2 percentage points each, and the Open Democratic Party increased by 1 percentage point, while the United Future Party and People’s Party fell by 3 and 1 percentage points respectively.

This survey contacted 7,954 adult men and women nationwide aged 18 and older, with a final 1,001 respondents completing the survey, resulting in a 13% response rate. The sampling error is ±3.1 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.