President Moon's Approval Rating at 44.8%... Lowest Since Cho Kuk Incident [Realmeter]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] President Moon Jae-in's approval rating for his administration has reached its lowest level since the former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk incident.

According to Realmeter's survey commissioned by YTN conducted from the 13th to the 17th, the positive evaluation of President Moon's administration rose by 3.9 percentage points from the previous week's aggregate to 44.8%, announced on the 20th. This is the lowest figure in nine months since the second week of October (41.4%) when the 'Cho Kuk incident' was at its peak. The negative evaluation increased by 4.5 percentage points to 51%. The gap between positive and negative evaluations stands at 6.2 percentage points, which is outside the margin of error.

This week's decline in approval ratings appears to be influenced by the late Park Won-soon, former Seoul mayor's case. In particular, the positive evaluation rate among women, who have been classified as a core support base for President Moon, dropped by 6.6 percentage points to 44.1%, and among those in their 30s, the positive evaluation rate fell by as much as 14.4 percentage points to 42.6%.

By region, the approval rating drop was significant in Seoul (39.6%, down 4.7 percentage points), Daegu·Gyeongbuk (29.9%, down 6.6 percentage points), and Daejeon·Sejong·Chungcheong (43.6%, down 5.4 percentage points).

Regarding party support, the Democratic Party of Korea recorded 35.3%, down 4.4 percentage points from the previous week, while the United Future Party rose by 1.3 percentage points to 31.0%. The gap between the two parties' support rates narrowed to 4.3 percentage points, the closest since the formation of the United Future Party. The previous smallest gap was 6.8 percentage points in the third week of February this year (Democratic 40.5%·United 33.7%), when the Liberty Korea Party, New Conservative Party, and Forward Party merged to form the United Future Party.

Additionally, the Justice Party remained at 5.9%, the Open Democratic Party dropped by 0.5 percentage points to 4.6%, and the People's Party rose by 1.5 percentage points to 4.4%.

This survey contacted 53,586 voters aged 18 and over nationwide, with a final response of 2,516 people, recording a response rate of 4.7%. The sampling error is ±2.0 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. For detailed information, refer to the Central Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.

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