Change in Public Sentiment 84 Days After the Presidential Election: "Democratic Party Goes from '0.7%p Close Fight' to '10.1%p Crushing Defeat'"

Democratic Party Suffers Crushing Defeat in Election Held 84 Days After Presidential Election
Analyzed as a Result of Failure to Rally Supporters After Presidential Loss

[Asia Economy Reporter Naju-seok] The local elections held just 84 days after the presidential election?how much has public sentiment changed? While the presidential election ended with a narrow margin of 0.7 percentage points, the local elections concluded with a landslide victory for the People Power Party. How much has public sentiment shifted since the presidential election?

The first thing to check is the results of the local elections. In the case of metropolitan governors, which attracted the most attention in this election, although the Democratic Party won the key battleground of Gyeonggi Province governor, the Democratic Party secured victories in 5 locations including Gyeonggi Province. On the other hand, the People Power Party won in 12 locations, including two in the Seoul metropolitan area such as Seoul and Incheon. For basic local governments, the People Power Party won 145 places, while the Democratic Party won 66. In metropolitan councils, the People Power Party secured a total of 540 seats, and the Democratic Party held 322 seats. In basic councils, the Democratic Party performed relatively well, but the People Power Party still held 1,435 seats compared to the Democratic Party’s 1,384 seats.

However, for a more intuitive comparison, we looked at how many votes the Democratic Party and the People Power Party each received in metropolitan governor elections. While the presidential election focuses on parties and a single candidate, and metropolitan governor elections involve evaluations of individual candidates, making a simple comparison less meaningful, it still serves as an indicator that directly reflects public support for the Democratic Party and the People Power Party political forces.

The Emergency Response Committee of the Democratic Party of Korea decided to resign en masse, taking responsibility for the defeat in the June 1 local elections. On the 3rd, the central party office in Yeouido, Seoul, showed a desolate scene. On the same day, the Democratic Party plans to hold a joint meeting of lawmakers and the party affairs committee to discuss measures to recover from the crushing defeat in the June 1 local elections. Photo by Yoon Dong-ju doso7@

In this election, the Democratic Party received 9.76 million votes (43.9%) across all metropolitan governor elections. The People Power Party succeeded in obtaining 11.99 million votes (54.0%). This contrasts with the last presidential election, where the Democratic Party had 16.14 million votes (47.8%) and the People Power Party had 16.34 million votes (48.5%). The gap of 0.7 percentage points has widened to 10.1 percentage points. While the People Power Party narrowly won the presidential election, they achieved a landslide victory in this local election.

Along with the People Power Party’s overwhelming victory, the change in voter turnout is noteworthy. The voter turnout for this local election was 50.9%, marking the lowest in 20 years. This is quite different from the past, when high voter turnout was recorded even under the special circumstances of COVID-19. For reference, the voter turnout in the last presidential election was 77.1%.

Regarding the low voter turnout, it is notable that the Democratic Party’s support base reportedly gave up voting. According to the exit poll analysis of the local elections by the three terrestrial broadcasters KBS, MBC, and SBS, the voter turnout among people in their 40s, who strongly support the Democratic Party, was only 40.9% for men and 44.4% for women. Considering that opinion polls showed strong Democratic Party support among people in their 40s, the lower-than-average turnout likely accelerated the Democratic Party’s defeat in the local elections.

The reasons are analyzed in various ways. These include disappointment with a series of actions the Democratic Party showed after the presidential election defeat, an analysis that the Democratic Party’s support base turned to political observation after the loss, and an analysis that voters gave up because the election trend had already tilted toward the People Power Party. However, all these analyses point to one conclusion: the Democratic Party failed to ‘mobilize’ its base.

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