Democratic Party Trails the People Power Party Again: Female Voters Sway after the "Julie Mural"

[경향신문]

On August 1, a placard with the words, “Wailing Wall” is being hung on the outer wall of a bookstore in Jongno-gu, Seoul inviting people to freely exercise their freedom of expression after a conservative YouTuber painted over the Julie mural, which slandered Kim Keon-hee, the wife of former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl. Lee Suck-woo

As political parties approach primaries to determine their presidential candidates, the Democratic Party of Korea, which had led the People Power Party in approval ratings, is losing its support again. The change seems to come after former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl joined the People Power Party. Female support for the Democratic Party also dropped significantly following the controversial “Julie mural,” which raised unverified allegations concerning the private life of Yoon’s wife.

Realmeter conducted a survey of 2,525 voters ages 18 and older on July 26-30 commissioned by YTN. The results of the survey on the weekly trend in the fourth week of July was released on August 2 (95% confidence level, with a ±2.0% margin of error), and according to the results, support for the Democratic Party was 33.6%, trailing the People Power Party (35.2%), but within the margin of error. In a survey conducted by the same firm on the second and third weeks of July, the Democratic Party received 36.7% and 35.1% of support respectively and was ahead of the People Power Party (34.9% in the second week, 33.7% in the third week). However, in the latest survey, the ruling party once again trailed the major opposition party.

The Korea Society Opinion Institute (KSOI) also conducted a survey of 1,013 people ages 18 and older on July 30-31 commissioned by TBS. According to the results released this day (95% confidence level with a ±3.1% margin of error), the Democratic Party of Korea (31.9%) trailed the People Power Party (34.9%) in approval ratings. The results of a survey conducted by the same institute a week earlier showed that the Democratic Party (34.4%) was actually ahead of the People Power Party (33.3%) in approval ratings.

The change in approval ratings in the fourth week of July seems to be connected to the convention bounce. The approval rating for the Democratic Party increased along with public interest in the party’s primaries until mid-July, but after the primary was postponed due to the latest wave of COVID-19, former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, a strong presidential candidate from the opposition, joined the People Power Party at the end of last month, pushing support for the opposition up.

The controversy triggered by the Julie mural at this time also encouraged support for the opposition. In the Realmeter-YTN survey, female support for the Democratic Party dropped 4.6% from 38.8% in the third week of July to 34.2% in the fourth week, whereas during the same period, female support for the People Power Party rose 3.5% from 27.6% to 31.1%. The KSOI-TBS survey also showed that female support for the Democratic Party fell 3.2% (from 37.3% to 34.1%), while it rose 4.9% for the People Power Party (from 28.6% to 33.5%). This was in contrast with support from men, which did not change more than 2% for both the Democratic Party and the People Power Party.

In both surveys, the approval rating for the Democratic Party was higher among the women, but after the Julie mural, female voters seemed to lean further toward the opposition. Some experts argue that the passive response from the Democratic Party influenced the change in support. In a meeting of the ruling party’s Supreme Council, members claimed that the Julie mural violated human rights, but experts claimed that the response was one step too late.

Bae Cheol-ho, a senior analyst at Realmeter said, “In terms of the opposition, the public seems to increasingly think that they should defend Yoon, while as for the ruling party, people viewed the attempt by enthusiastic supporters to disclose the privacy of a woman as inappropriate. A combination of these factors affected the latest change.”

However, the People Power Party’s controversial support for misogynistic opinions in connection to the archer An San, an athlete on the national team, was not reflected in the latest surveys. For more details, please visit the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.