Tag: Korean Polls

Yoon’s approval rating is still not great, but at least it is trending in the right direction and no longer in the 30’s:

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s approval rating inched up 0.1 percentage point to 41.2 percent, climbing for the second consecutive week, a poll showed Monday.

In the survey of 2,518 adults conducted from Monday to Friday last week, 41.2 percent gave a positive assessment of Yoon’s performance, while 56.6 percent gave a negative assessment, according to pollster Realmeter.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Korean left is going to need President Yoon’s approval rating to be much lower if they hope to try and impeach him using the Itaewon Crushing Tragedy as a pretext.

President Yoon’s popularity continues to slide in South Korea:

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s approval rating was recorded slightly above 30 percent in a national poll conducted just before the Chuseok fall harvest holiday, a poll showed Saturday.

In a two-day poll conducted by Korea Research on 1,001 adults from Wednesday, Yoon’s approval rating stood at 30.4 percent, while his disapproval rating was recorded at 63.6 percent. Six percent said they were uncertain of their assessments.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I don’t remember a President having their approval rating dropping this fast before:

What began as an approval rating of 52 percent in his first week in office was down to 24 percent by the first week of August, or only half of the 48.6 percent he won in votes during the election, according to Gallup Korea. 

Yoon’s personnel choices were cited as among the biggest factors behind the slide, the pollster said, as controversy erupted over Education Minister Park Soon-ae’s plan to lower the elementary school entry age to 5. Park resigned last week.

The minister was not the only person to draw fire. Yoon’s decision to abolish the first lady’s office backfired when friends and acquaintances of first lady Kim Keon-hee were found to be accompanying and assisting her on official trips, including on Yoon and Kim’s visit to Spain in June.

Economic challenges weighed heavily on the new administration as prices soared along with the interest rate and exchange rate. The COVID-19 pandemic showed no signs of abating as cases mounted with the spread of new variants, while flash floods in the capital area killed at least a dozen people and exposed deep flaws in the country’s flood control systems.

To add to the administration’s woes, the ruling People Power Party was in a constant state of turmoil that was worsened by the embarrassing disclosure of texts Yoon exchanged with the party’s floor leader in which Yoon was seen backbiting about suspended party leader Lee Jun-seok.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if his numbers continue to decline it makes me wonder if the Korean left will try and invent some way to impeach him like they did to former President Park Geun-hye?

He hasn’t been President very long, but a 32.5% approval rate is definitely something for the Yoon administration to be concerned about:

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s approval rating fell to 32.5 percent, with his disapproval rating rising to nearly twofold of his approval rating, a survey showed Wednesday.

The Rnsearch poll of 1,045 voters conducted from Saturday to Tuesday showed 32.5 percent of respondents approved of the way Yoon handled state affairs while 63.5 percent gave a negative assessment.

Yoon’s approval rating, which came in at 52.5 percent four weeks earlier, has been trending lower in the past month. After falling to 42.6 percent in the same poll a week ago, it plunged 10.1 percentage points to 32.5 percent this week.

In the same period, those who were unhappy with Yoon’s performance jumped from 43 percent to 63.5 percent.

The latest poll comes amid growing concerns over the economy and political turmoil at the ruling People Power Party (PPP).

Korea has been grappling with rising inflation and global supply chain disruptions, which prompted the central bank to deliver an unprecedented 0.5 percentage point rate hike early Wednesday.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It is still early, but the polling shows that Korean conservatives do have a good shot of regaining the Blue House five years after the disastrous impeachment of former conservative President Park Geun-hye:

 Yoon Seok-youl, the presidential nominee of the main opposition People Power Party, is leading his opponent Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party by nearly 12 percentage points in a hypothetical multicandidate race, a survey showed Monday.

Yoon garnered 43 percent support against Lee’s 31.2 percent in the survey conducted on 1,009 adults nationwide on Friday and Saturday, according to the Korea Society Opinion Institute (KSOI).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Anti-China sentiment continues to grow in South Korea, but with how intertwined the ROK’s economy is with China will their government be willing to do anything significant to counter China’s attempted hegemony over the Peninsula?:

However, a recent poll highlighted a major paradigm shift in the trend of South Korean public perception toward surrounding states, which may affect the presidential candidates’ foreign policy pledges. According to the poll by Hankook Research and South Korean online newspaper SisaIn, the South Korean public was least favorable toward of China; even North Korea and Japan were viewed more positively.

The participants were asked to give a favorability score to four countries – China, Japan, North Korea, and the United States – on a scale between 0 and 100. South Koreans gave the most negative rating to China with an average of 26.4, lower than North Korea at 28.6 and Japan at 28.8. The United States had the most favorable rating at 57.3. Furthermore, to the question of whether participants thought a particular country is “good” or “evil,” 58.1 percent labeled China as evil, whereas only 4.5 percent said it was good.

The increasing anti-China sentiment in South Korea is a remarkable trend for Seoul’s foreign policy. Previously, South Korean public opinion focused on North Korea and Japan as the country’s top potential threats. The same poll in late 2019 showed that Japan was the least favorably viewed country among South Koreans, with 21.0 favorability, while China rated 35.6. Although there were issues such as historical disputes centered on the former Korean kingdom Goguryeo and illegal Chinese fishing in South Korean waters, the hatred for China was relatively weak compared to concerns over the North Korean nuclear program and the rise of the far-right movement in Japan.

The Diplomat

You can read more at the link, but I will believe the significance of these polls when Koreans come out and protest against China like they did against the U.S. in the early 2000’s. The fact they don’t despite China’s wide unpopularity shows how intimidated Koreans are by the CCP.

President Moon and his Democrat Party keeps dropping in the approval ratings, but the Korean conservatives have yet to offer someone as their counter to him to capitalize on his unpopularity:

President Moon Jae-in’s job approval rating has fallen to a record low of 37.4 percent, a poll showed Thursday, with a rift between the justice minister and the top prosecutor deepening and housing prices in major areas continuing to rise.

Public approval for the ruling Democratic Party (DP) also dropped to 28.9 percent, the lowest since the launch of the Moon administration in May 2017, while that of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) rose to 31.2 percent, according to Realmeter.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest of President Moon’s approval rating:

Realmeter polling company said Monday that 50.7 percent of the people it surveyed said they disapprove of Moon’s performance, up 1.6 percentage points from the previous week. The poll was conducted from Tuesday till Friday last week at the request of YTN. 

Moon’s approval rating was 46.1 percent in the fourth week of February, down by 1.3 percentage points from the third week of February, according to the poll. The gap between the approval rating and disapproval rating was 4.6 percentage points, which went up higher than the margin of error for the first time in four weeks. 

In Daegu and North Gyeongsang, where infections are skyrocketing day by day, Moon’s approval rating was 30.1 percent, while his disapproval rating was 65 percent. “The coronavirus outbreak will become the most critical factor in the politics in the coming weeks,” Realmeter said. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

What Generation Z wants doesn’t matter because the Korean left currently in power in South Korea is pushing the country towards a confederation with North Korea:

South Koreans born after 1995 are less supportive of unification and feel less affinity for North Koreans despite a common ethnic identity, according to a recent survey.

The poll from newspaper Hankook Ilbo and Hankook Research taken in early December interviewed a pool of 500 Generation Z respondents and compared their answers to those of 500 South Korean members of Generation X, or people born after 1968 and before 1980.

The Hankook Ilbo reported Friday Gen Z respondents were relatively apathetic about the notion of a unitary Korean people that binds Koreans of North and South.

When asked about their sense of “belonging” to transnational Koreans as an ethnic group, fewer Gen Z respondents responded positively than their Gen X counterparts, or about 13 percentage points lower, according to the report. Lack of identification with North Koreans was also greater among Gen Z respondents; only about 12 percent of them said they view North Korea in a positive light.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.