In the Aug. 17 party convention's touring primaries in Gangwon, Daegu, and North Gyeongsang to elect the next leadership of the Democratic Party of Korea, Kim Min-seok finished first. The vote gap between the two candidates is 1,622. In this primary, Song Young-gil posted a vote share that fell short of 10%.
On the afternoon of the 9th in Daegu, the Democratic Party held a joint campaign speech event for the touring primaries to elect the party leader and Supreme Council members and announced the results for Gangwon, Daegu, and North Gyeongsang. Only the vote share of dues-paying members is disclosed in the touring primaries. A total of 39,092 dues-paying members took part in the vote that day.
In Gangwon, Daegu, and North Gyeongsang, Kim Min-seok won 18,977 votes for a 48.54% share. Candidate Jeong received 17,355 votes (44.39%), and candidate Song received 2,760 votes (7.06%). The vote share gap that day between Kim and Jeong, who are locked in a fierce race for the lead, is 4.15 percentage points. With this, Kim has defeated Jeong following the Jeju and Incheon primaries the previous day.
That day, Kim recorded more votes than Jeong in Gangwon and North Gyeongsang. In particular, in Gangwon, Kim received 9,568 votes (50.30%), more than half of the 19,022 voters. In Gangwon, Jeong managed 7,978 votes (41.94%). In North Gyeongsang, Kim received 4,948 votes (47.37%) and Jeong 4,774 votes (45.71%). In Daegu, Jeong narrowly led with 4,603 votes (47.82%) over Kim (46.35%).
In the overall accumulated vote share, Kim leads with 46.01% over Jeong at 44.53%. The overall accumulated vote share gap between the two is 1.48 percentage points, widening somewhat from the previous day's 0.87 percentage points. However, because the weighted values for strategic regions have not been applied, the exact figures must be confirmed on the day of the party convention.
In the Supreme Council primary for Gangwon, Daegu, and North Gyeongsang, candidate Choi Min-hee received the most votes with 13,326. Next were candidate Park Sun-won (12,877), candidate Seo Mi-hwa (11,560), Han Min-su (11,061), and Lee Seong-yun (9,947).
The Democratic Party will hold touring primaries in Honam on the 15th and in Seoul and Gyeonggi on the 16th. The two regions account for about 70% of the party's dues-paying members, so they are expected to decide the outcome of the party leader election. This party convention is being conducted with a formula of 70% delegates and dues-paying members and 30% public opinion polling. The final results will be announced at the party convention in Daejeon on the 17th.