With about a week remaining until the 21st presidential election, the ban on the release of opinion poll results related to the election will begin on the 28th. According to the Public Official Election Act, the results of presidential opinion polls cannot be published until 6 p.m. on the 3rd of next month.
In the opinion poll just before the ban on publicizing survey results, Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party candidate, was found to be in a favorable position. This is different from the previous presidential election three years ago, when just before the ban on publicizing survey results, Yoon Suk-yeol was in a close contest as the then People Power Party candidate.
According to a survey conducted by Korea Gallup from May 20 to 22 with 1,002 voters aged 18 and older nationwide (with a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points, using random sampling of mobile phone virtual numbers, and an 17.8% response rate), Lee Jae-myung recorded a support rate of 45%, while Kim Moon-soo recorded a support rate of 36%.
In a survey conducted by Realmeter at the request of the Energy Economy Newspaper from May 22 to 23, involving 1,009 voters aged 18 and older nationwide (with a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points, using a 100% automated response method, and an 8.3% response rate), the support rates were recorded at 46.6% for the candidate Lee and 37.6% for candidate Kim.
However, it is noted that the gap in support rates between candidate Lee and candidate Kim is narrowing recently. In the Korea Gallup May 4th week opinion poll, the support rate gap between candidates Lee and Kim was 9 percentage points (p), while in the previous week's poll from May 3rd, the gap was 22 percentage points.
The support rate of Lee Jun-seok, the Reform Party candidate, is also showing an upward trend. In the Korea Gallup survey for the 4th week of May, candidate Lee Jun-seok recorded a support rate of 10%, while the Realmeter survey showed 10.4%, which is an increase of 2 percentage points and 1 percentage point, respectively, from a week ago.