President Lee Jae Myung. [Yonhap]
President Lee Jae Myung. [Yonhap]

President Lee Jae Myung's job approval rating has rebounded for the first time in a month, according to a poll released Friday.

A Gallup Korea survey of 1,004 registered voters aged 18 and older, conducted Tuesday through Thursday, found that both Lee's positive and negative job performance ratings stood at 45% each. Eleven percent withheld judgment.

The positive rating rose 1 percentage point from last week's 44%, while the negative rating fell 1 percentage point from 46%. The figures reverse a "dead cross" — when negative ratings overtook positive ones — that emerged last week, with Lee returning to even ground within a week.

Among voters who rated Lee's performance positively, "diplomacy" was the top reason cited, at 19%, followed by "economy and livelihoods" (11%), "communication" (7%) and "policies for ordinary people and welfare" (5%).

Among those who rated him negatively, "real estate policy" ranked first at 28%. Real estate has topped the list of reasons for negative assessments every week since the fourth week of July. Other leading reasons for disapproval included "economy and livelihoods" (12%), "national defense, security and North Korea policy" (7%), "poor performance overall" (6%) and "authoritarian or unilateral decision-making" (5%).

Breaking down results by political affiliation, 74% of Democratic Party supporters said Lee was doing well, while 80% of People Power Party supporters said he was not. Among self-described moderates, positive and negative ratings were nearly equal at 43% and 46%, respectively. Among voters with no party preference, negative assessments (50%) outpaced positive ones (29%).

By region, negative ratings in Seoul outpaced positive ones by 23 percentage points — 56% to 32%. By age group, voters in their 40s and 50s gave the highest positive ratings, at 55% and 50%, respectively.

In party support, the Democratic Party held at 41% and the People Power Party at 25%, both unchanged from last week. The overall party landscape showed little movement even as the Democratic Party held a national convention Monday to elect Kim Min-seok as its new leader. The Rebuilding Korea Party, the Progressive Party and the Reform Party each recorded 2%.

The survey was conducted using random-digit dialing of virtual mobile numbers provided by the three major wireless carriers. The margin of error was ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, with a response rate of 10.0%. Full methodology is available on the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.


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