[AKYUNG Poll] Hong Joon-pyo, Chu Mi-ae, Choi Jae-hyung 'Rising' while Ahn Cheol-soo, Chung Sye-kyun 'Stalling'

Hong Rises to 4th, Chu to 5th... Choi Jae-hyung's Approval Slightly Up to 7th

[Asia Economy Reporters Koo Chae-eun and Geum Bo-ryeong] The approval ratings of former Minister of Justice Chu Mi-ae and People Power Party lawmaker Hong Joon-pyo, two presidential candidates from opposing parties who claim to be 'Yoon Seok-yeol's snipers,' are strong. As former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol's presidential bid approaches, interest in candidates who check the 'one-top' is also rising. Meanwhile, the dominance of the 'big three' system of Yoon Seok-yeol, Lee Jae-myung, and Lee Nak-yeon is weakening. Ahn Cheol-soo, leader of the People’s Party, and former Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun also appear to be relatively stagnant.

In the 'Next Presidential Candidate Support Rate' survey, which covers candidates from both ruling and opposition parties at once, former Prosecutor General Yoon recorded 30.7%, Governor Lee 26.6%, and former Representative Lee 9.5%. Compared to the survey conducted on the 12th-13th, these figures dropped by 2.6, 1.7, and 0.5 percentage points, respectively. The decline in their support rates was transferred to a balanced rise among candidates ranked fourth and below. The biggest beneficiaries were former Minister Chu and lawmaker Hong. Hong, who ranked fourth overall, saw his support rise from 3.9% to 5.7%, and former Minister Chu, who received 5.1%, ranked fifth, just behind Hong. Support rates for former lawmaker Yoo Seung-min and Auditor General Choi Jae-hyung also rose slightly.

In particular, Hong is the only current People Power Party presidential candidate to make it into the top 10. This is interpreted as a result of the 'reinstatement convention effect' and his strong performance in the clarity competition of 'hitting Yoon Seok-yeol.' In this survey, 10.2% of People Power Party supporters and 10.3% of supporters of other parties said they support Hong. On the 25th, Hong compared former Prosecutor General Yoon to a 'new product in an online shopping mall,' saying, "When a new product is delivered, don’t you check it yourself and return it if there are defects?" Former Minister Chu also likened herself to a 'hawk catching a pheasant,' confidently claiming to be the 'right person' to face Yoon, which is seen as a key factor in her rising support. There is also a possibility that former Minister Chu will consolidate the strong pro-Moon Jae-in faction, which harbors strong antipathy toward Yoon, thereby increasing her scale. In this survey, 7.4% of Democratic Party supporters, 11.5% of Justice Party supporters, and 19.0% of supporters of other parties responded that they support former Minister Chu.

The trend is similar even when the survey is divided between the Democratic Party and the conservative opposition. In the 'Suitability of Conservative Opposition Presidential Candidates' survey, former Prosecutor General Yoon ranked highest at 31.6%, but this is a 3.8 percentage point decrease from the previous survey (35.4%), showing signs of slowing. Meanwhile, second-place candidate Hong rose 4.7 percentage points from 9.1% to 13.8%. Auditor General Choi also increased from 3.2% to 5.4%.

Among Democratic Party candidates, the dominance of the big two, Lee Jae-myung and Lee Nak-yeon, weakened. The combined support rate for the two candidates was 50.0% in the previous survey but fell to 48.5% in this one. Accordingly, the combined support rate of the other seven candidates on the list increased from 28.5% to 32.4%.

On the other hand, Leader Ahn dropped from 3.2% (5th place) to 2.7% (8th place) in the overall candidate survey, and from 8.9% (4th place) to 6.3% (4th place) in the conservative opposition survey. Former Prime Minister Chung also showed a slight decline, from 2.1% (8th place) to 2.2% (9th place) in the overall survey, and from 5.5% (5th place) to 5.4% (6th place) in the Democratic Party survey. Former Deputy Prime Minister Kim Dong-yeon, who has not yet disclosed whether he will enter politics, recorded 5.8% in the Democratic Party survey but only 2.3% when classified as conservative opposition.

This survey was conducted by Asia Economy through Win-G Korea Consulting from the 26th to 27th, targeting voters nationwide aged 18 and over, with 1,009 respondents and an overall response rate of 8.5%. The survey method was 100% wireless ARS using virtual mobile phone numbers, and the sample was extracted with weighting by gender, age, and region based on the resident registration population as of the end of January 2021 from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (cell weighting). The sampling error is ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. For detailed survey information, please refer to the Win-G Korea Consulting website or the Central Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.

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