The Aftermath of the Democratic Primaries Rings an Alarm: 40% of Lee Nak-yon's Supporters Went to Yoon Seok-youl

[경향신문]

On October 14, the results of a survey showed that some of the supporters of Lee Nak-yon, former leader of the Democratic Party of Korea who lost in the party primaries, expressed their support for former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, a presidential candidate of the People Power Party and not Gyeonggi Governor Lee Jae-myung, who was elected as the Democratic Party candidate. Wounds from the party primaries have yet to heal, and they appear to be behind the latest result. Some experts believe this is a warning sign on the “one team” that the Democratic Party is trying to form ahead of the presidential race.

According to an OhmyNews survey of 2,027 people conducted by Realmeter on October 11-12, when the respondents were asked which candidate they supported in a four-way presidential race of Lee Jae-myung, Yoon Seok-youl, Sim Sang-jeung, and Ahn Cheol-soo, 34.0% chose Lee Jae-myung and 33.7% chose Yoon Seok-youl. The difference between the two candidates was 0.3%, within the margin of error (2.2%). They were followed by former Justice Party leader Sim Sang-jeung (4.2%) and People’s Party leader Ahn Cheol-soo (4.0%). The remaining 13.8% answered that they would vote for another candidate and 10.3% said they did not know or did not have a candidate they supported.

A closer look at the respondents showed that 84.2% of the people who said they supported Lee Jae-myung in the Democratic Party primaries still supported him. About half (49.3%) of the people who had supported former minister Choo Mi-ae said they now supported Governor Lee.

However, 40.3% of the respondents who had supported Lee Nak-yon, who lost to Lee Jae-myung earning the second most votes in the primaries, said they chose Yoon Seok-youl as the future president. Only 14.2% of Lee Nak-yon supporters chose Lee Jae-myung. Respondents who said they would choose other candidates reached 19.6%, and 13.8% answered that they didn’t have a candidate they wanted to vote for.

A similar trend was seen in a virtual four-way race of Lee Jae-myung, Hong Joon-pyo, Sim Sang-jeung and Ahn Cheol-soo. Only 13.3% of the people who supported Lee Nak-yon in the party primaries chose Lee Jae-myung and 29.9% chose lawmaker Hong Joon-pyo.

Bae Cheol-ho, a senior analyst at Realmeter said, “Even when we consider that Lee Nak-yon’s acceptance of the primary results yesterday was not reflected in the survey, the latest results show that the aftermath of the primary is significant.”

This is bound to ignite a sense of crisis for the Democratic Party and Governor Lee, who must form a single team for the presidential race.

Bae said, “The direction and details of the ‘one team’ has emerged as top priority along with efforts to form the party’s line against the opposition and to resolve allegations linked to Daejang-dong,” and added, “Although Lee Nak-yon accepted the primary results yesterday, how he is going to comfort his supporters will be critical.”

The latest survey had a confidence level of 95% with a 2.2% margin of error. For more details, you can visit the Realmeter website or the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.