President Moon's Approval Rating at 42.5%... Lowest in 13 Months [Realmeter]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] A public opinion poll revealed that President Moon Jae-in's approval rating for his administration has hit its lowest point in 13 months.

According to Realmeter, which conducted the survey commissioned by tbs from the 16th to the 18th, the positive evaluation of President Moon's administration dropped by 1.8 percentage points from the previous week's aggregate to 42.5%, announced on the 19th. Negative evaluations rose by 2.3 percentage points to 53.3%. The gap between positive and negative evaluations stands at 10.8 percentage points, which is outside the margin of error.

The positive rating being more than 10 percentage points lower than the negative rating is the first time in 13 months since the second week of October last year, around the time of the Cho Kuk former Minister of Justice scandal. At that time, President Moon's approval rating was the lowest since his inauguration (41.4%).

The decline in approval ratings is analyzed to be due to the public's accumulated fatigue over the ongoing conflict between Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae and Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, as well as backlash against real estate policies amid the housing shortage.

Regarding party support rates, the Democratic Party of Korea recorded 32.0%, down 0.8 percentage points from the previous week, while the People Power Party rose 2.2 percentage points to 29.5%.

In Seoul, where a by-election will be held in April next year, the Democratic Party recorded 29.1%, and the People Power Party 27.7%. In Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam, the People Power Party led with 32.0%, followed by the Democratic Party at 29.8%.

Support rates for parties other than the two major parties were as follows: the People Party 6.6%, the Justice Party 5.9%, the Open Democratic Party 5.9%, the Basic Income Party 1.2%, and Transition Korea 0.4%.

This survey contacted 41,951 voters aged 18 and over nationwide, with a final 1,506 respondents completing the survey, resulting in a response rate of 3.6%. The sampling error is ±2.5 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. For more details, refer to the website of the Central Election Survey Deliberation Commission.

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