Korean Elections Blog

This piece annoyed me because it was such a load of nonsense. https://www.thedailybeast.com/south-koreas-right-wing-is-rising-and-could-scuttle-trumps-peace-with-kim-jong-un?ref=scroll He wandered round Daejeon and found some people who want to kill Kim Jeong-Un so now the ‘right’ (applying western terms to a country with very different politics is something I generally avoid but that’s what Kirk does) is in the ascendancy apparently. Never mind that in party preference they are 10-15% behind in the polls or that the talks with North Korea remain overwhelmingly popular.    In Daejeon Liberty Korea are polling around 25%*- around where they have been polling for the last year.  In the June 2018 Mayoral election, the Democrat got 56.4% of the vote beating Liberty Korea’s Park Seong-Hyo who got 32.2%. Liberty Korea are not on the rise in Daejeon or anywhere else.  Of course the Liberty Party may come back.  But it hasn't happened yet and no sign it is...

After a brief surge into the 60s President Moon’s approval rating has returned to around 50% as North Korea once again disappears from the headlines in South Korea. With Gallup he is rated at 53% ‘doing well’ 39% ‘doing badly’. Real Metre has him at 49% approval, 46% disapproval. Research View has him at 49% doing well and 47% doing badly. The party polling is as follows Gallup: Democrats 41% Liberty Korea 15% Justice 11% Righteous Future 7% Real Metre: Democrats 38% Liberty Korea 26%  Justice 8% Righteous Future 6% Research View: Democrats 39% Liberty Korea 20% Justice 10% Righteous Future 9% All of which looks at least comparable to the local election results earlier this year (Democrats 51% Liberty Korea 28% Justice Party 9% Rigteous Future 8% Other 3%). Moon is reasonably popular compared to past Presidents at this point in their terms. His predecessor Park Gun-Hye polled in the low 40s at this point in her presidency and before her Lee Myung Bak ...

Ri Sol Ju, Kim Jeong Un, Moon Jae-in and Kim Jung-sook at Mt. Baekdu in North Korea.   Moon Jae-in was in Pyongyang last week for his third summit with Kim Jeong Un. Highlights included a trip to Mt Baekdu (pictured above) which is the highest point on the Korean peninsula and important in traditional Korean mythology and in the mythology of the ruling Kim family in North Korea. Moon also gave a speech at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang. Moons approval rating has been falling quite sharply ever since the last summit which was followed by a stunning victory for the Democrats (Moon’s party) in the local elections in June. From a high of 79% in the first week of June Moon fell to 49% in the first week of September. He’s enjoyed a post summit bounce in the Gallup polls taking him up to 61% of people saying he is ‘doing well’ with 30% saying he is ‘doing badly.’ Realmeter show the same trend- Moon has reserved his downward trend and has gone up 9% in one week to an approv...

Sim Sang-jung Assembly member for Goyang A, and former presidential candidate for the Justice Party who have been enjoying a good few weeks in the polls.  Short version: Moon and the Democrats have had quite a massive chunk out of their ratings over the last month but were doing so well to start with they are still doing fine. The Democrats remain incredibly popular and Moon remains significantly more popular than his party. Moon’s very popular handling of the North Korea issue has been out of the news and voters minds and his still popular but nowhere as popular handling of the economy more prominent so Moon’s ratings and his parties are down a bit. Also a scandal around a lefty blogger who may or may not have had had ties to the Moon administration has been in the news a lot. Moon Jae in approval Real Meter has him at 62% approval 33% disapproval. This follows a quite sharp decline in his approval ratings and uptick in his disapproval since the local elections ...

Even this place voted Democrat Wikipedia actually has a pretty good summary of the results in English and if you can read Hangul namu wiki has a better run down   so this will be pretty brief. Things that went as expected 1) Big victory for the Democrats. They got 51% of the vote nationally (tbh a bit less than I expected) with a 23% lead over the 2 nd place Liberty Korea party. They won 12 out of 13 national assembly special elections. Won all but 3 of the races for Governors and Metropolitan Mayors (basically the governors of big cities). They won 652 out of 824 of the seats in provincial assemblies and 1638 out of 2926 seats in county level elections (when rural, Liberty Korea supporting areas get more seats). It is the most convincing win in a Korean election since 1960. Even dictators who had complete control of the media, rigged the elections and had no intention of giving up power even if they somehow lost didn’t win by this much.   They even won...

Exit polls are generally of excellent quality in Korea so these won't be too far off the actual results. By-elections The pre-election polls were generally pretty much spot on if  the exit poll is right. In the 12 special elections the Democat is winning by a country mile in 10 of them so it is pretty safe to say the Democrats have held the 4 seats they were defending and have gained 6 seats tonight.  They may add a seventh in Jechon-Dayang. It was also forecast by the opinion polls to be a fairly comfortable win for the Democrats but the Democrats lead by just 2% according to the exit poll which is within the exit poll's margin of error. This is a pretty safe seat for the Liberty Korea party normally- they got 58% of the vote here in the 2016 national assembly elections so even a narrow defeat here for the Democrats is pretty impressive.  In their ultra-safe seat of Gimcheon the Liberty Korea party seems to have held off a challenge from an independent. Pre-...

Here is a summary for the latest poll from every National Assembly By-election.  Democrat holds Incheon Namdong A is set to be retained by the Democrats- they have a 31% lead over the Liberty Korea candidate. Cheonan C is also going to be a Democrat hold with their candidate currently having a 35% lead. Seoul Songpa B the Democrat has a 20% lead over the Liberty Korea candidate. This is a swing district which was won at the last election by a Democrat who defected to the Righteous Future party. Gimhae B- the latest polls show the Democtats retaining the seat by 35%. Democrat Gains In Seoul Nowon C the Democrat has a 35% lead over the Righteous Future candidate. This would be a gain for the Democrats from the Rigteous Future party. Cheonan A is set to be a Democrat gain with their candidate leading the Liberty Korea canididate by 28%. Busan Haeundae B latest poll has 19% lead for the Democrat over the Liberty Korea candidate (though ‘Don’t Know ...