People Power Party's Support in Incheon and Gyeonggi Drops Below 20 Percent

President Lee Jae-myung's negative assessment in Incheon and Gyeonggi Province has increased nearly 9 percentage points in just over a month, while the Democratic Party of Korea has maintained its support in the 40 percent range. Meanwhile, the People Power Party has fallen below the 20 percent mark.

According to a poll conducted by Gallup Korea from September 5-7 targeting 1,018 adults nationwide aged 18 and older, party support in Incheon and Gyeonggi Province stood at 41.0% for the Democratic Party and 19.1% for the People Power Party. The gap between the two parties is 21.9 percentage points.

Comparing the three most recent surveys reveals a downward trend for the People Power Party in Incheon and Gyeonggi Province.

Support for the People Power Party in Incheon and Gyeonggi Province was recorded at 25.4% in a survey conducted August 1-3, then dropped to 23.2% in a survey from August 30-31. In this latest survey, it fell further to 19.1%. This represents a decline of 6.3 percentage points in just over a month, with support falling below the 20 percent threshold.

In contrast, the Democratic Party maintained support in the 40 percent range across all three surveys during the same period: 42.6%, 43.4%, and 41.0%. Compared to early August, the decline was only 1.6 percentage points.

Accordingly, the gap in party support between the two has widened from 17.2 percentage points in early August to 20.2 percentage points at the end of August, and to 21.9 percentage points in this survey.

Notably, this contrasts sharply with the deterioration of regional opinion toward President Lee during the same period.

President Lee's negative assessment regarding presidential job performance in Incheon and Gyeonggi Province skyrocketed from 54.2% in early August to 63.0% at the end of August, and registered 63.1% in this latest survey. This represents an increase of 8.9 percentage points in just over a month.

Despite the president's negative assessment exceeding 60 percent, the Democratic Party's support has remained in the 40 percent range while the People Power Party's support has actually declined, showing a divergence between presidential approval and party support.

However, as these three surveys did not track the same respondents, it is not possible to directly confirm which party voters who left the president have shifted to. Additionally, the Incheon and Gyeonggi figures are the result of tallying only responses from that region within the nationwide survey, meaning the sample size is smaller than nationwide figures, which should be taken into consideration.

The nationwide samples for the three surveys were 1,000, 1,038, and 1,018 adults aged 18 and older, respectively, with sampling margins of error at the 95 percent confidence level of ±3.1 percentage points, ±3.0 percentage points, and ±3.1 percentage points, respectively. Response rates were 2.1%, 2.9%, and 2.5%, respectively. The early August and early September surveys combined landline telephone interviews with wireless automated response systems, while the late August survey was conducted using both landline and wireless automated response systems.

For more details, please refer to the Central Election Survey Deliberation Committee website.