A public opinion poll on Aug. 24 found that President Lee Jae-myung's job approval fell for the sixth straight week, again hitting a new low. The president's approval has steadily declined since recording 48.9% in the second week of July.
At the request of Energy Economy News, Realmeter surveyed 2,026 voters aged 18 or older nationwide from the 18th to the 21st and found that the positive assessment of the president's job performance came to 40.2%, down 2.8 percentage points from a week earlier.
The negative assessment was 56.9%, up 2.8 percentage points from last week. The gap between positive and negative assessments was 16.7 percentage points, outside the margin of error, and "don't know" was 3.0%.
Realmeter explained, "As distrust of real estate policy grew amid the controversy over supplying dwellings in Yongsan Park, and with ruling and opposition parties clashing over Chief Justice Jo Hee-de's written recommendation and the push for constitutional revision, compounded by security concerns due to the downsizing of South Korea-U.S. joint drills, it appears defections among conservatives and those aged 70 and older have expanded."
In the party support survey, the Democratic Party of Korea recorded 41.9%, down 6.0 percentage points from the previous survey.
The People Power Party recorded 37.6%, up 4.5 percentage points. The Rebuilding Korea Party was 3.9%, The Progressive Party was 2.3%, and the Reform Party was 2.0%. Other parties were 2.5%, and independents were 9.7%.
Regarding the Democratic Party, Realmeter assessed, "With the convention effect fading after the party leader's convention ended, along with intra-party conflict stemming from the controversy over supplying dwellings in Yongsan Park and the appointment of nominated supreme council members by the Kim Min-seok leadership, support appears to have fallen."
On the People Power Party, it assessed that the party "sharply highlighted security concerns stemming from the downsizing of South Korea-U.S. joint drills and the ruling camp's real estate policy controversy, consolidating conservatives and absorbing defectors from the Democratic Party."