Approval rating up 1 percentage point from previous survey; disapproval also rises 2 points

President Lee Jae Myung delivers remarks at a national briefing on the advanced industry development vision for the Chungcheong region, held in Asan on Wednesday. [Yonhap]
President Lee Jae Myung delivers remarks at a national briefing on the advanced industry development vision for the Chungcheong region, held in Asan on Wednesday. [Yonhap]

By Joo So-hyun, The Herald Business

A poll released Wednesday showed President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating at 58 percent.

The National Barometer Survey (NBS) — conducted jointly by Macromill Embrain, KStat Research, Korea Research and Hankook Research from June 29 through July 1 among 1,000 adults aged 18 and older — found that 58 percent of respondents gave a positive assessment of Lee's job performance.

That is up 1 percentage point from the previous survey, conducted in the second week of June. Lee's approval had held in the 60 percent range from February before plunging 9 points to 57 percent in that survey — its first drop below 60 percent in roughly four and a half months.

Lee's disapproval rating stood at 35 percent, up 2 percentage points from the previous survey. Disapproval has been rising since hitting a low of 21 percent in the fourth-week-of-April survey. The "don't know/no response" share fell 3 points to 7 percent.

On party support, the Democratic Party of Korea polled at 42 percent, the People Power Party at 20 percent, the Reform Party and the Rebuilding Korea Party each at 2 percent, and the Progressive Party at 1 percent, with 30 percent giving no response. The Democratic Party's support edged up 1 percentage point from the second-week-of-June survey, reversing a roughly month-and-a-half-long slide.

The People Power Party's support fell 5 percentage points from the second-week-of-June survey, snapping a recovery that had been under way since the party hit a low of 15 percent in the fourth-week-of-April survey.

The survey was conducted via telephone interviews using mobile virtual numbers and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. The response rate was 20 percent. Full details are available on the website of the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission.


addressh@heraldcorp.com