Gallup Korea poll puts approval at 38%, lowest since inauguration, down for third straight week

Real estate woes and other setbacks fuel talk of tough 2028 general election

Kim Min-seok holds closed-door meeting with Seoul lawmakers to coordinate response

Concerns grow over momentum for special prosecutor bill, constitutional reform push

President Lee Jae Myung (Yonhap)
President Lee Jae Myung (Yonhap)

As President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating keeps hitting new lows since he took office, alarm is growing within the ruling Democratic Party of Korea. Negative public sentiment over real estate policy has been compounded by a recent controversy over Cabinet appointments, and some in the party worry that "no clear turning point is in sight for now."

Gallup Korea's poll released Friday showed approval of Lee's job performance at 38 percent, the lowest since he took office. The figure has fallen for three consecutive weeks in Gallup's polling, marking the first time approval has dropped below 40 percent. Disapproval reached 51 percent.

A senior Democratic Party official, speaking with The Herald Business, described the situation surrounding Lee's declining approval rating as "very serious," adding, "Rather than just responding to daily issues, there needs to be some kind of turning point, but right now, no such opportunity is in sight."

Within the party, some worry that a prolonged slump could weigh on future elections. Several Democratic Party officials said, "At this rate, even the 2028 general election could be difficult," and "This Cabinet reshuffle should have been used as a chance to change the mood, but it was not."

The same Gallup poll found that 61 percent of respondents viewed Yong Hye-in, the nominee for minister of gender equality and family, as unfit for the post. Kim Seung-won, the nominee for justice minister, also drew more negative than positive assessments, with 43 percent calling him unfit.

The Democratic Party is watching real estate-related public sentiment particularly closely. An in-house poll the party conducted among Seoul residents on real estate issues also found negative views prevailing. A party official said, "The result was predictable. It is not much different from the publicly released polling results."

In response, Seoul-area lawmakers had strongly pushed for revisions to the government's proposed real estate tax reform, and a revised government bill has since been submitted to the National Assembly. Despite criticism from some hardline supporters that this amounted to a "policy retreat," the party is said to have strongly conveyed to the government the need to take metropolitan-area sentiment into account.

On Thursday, Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok held a closed-door meeting with some Seoul-area lawmakers. One lawmaker who attended told The Herald Business, "We shared with the leader the negative sentiment in the Seoul area, among other things, and talked it through. Kim was also concerned, and we agreed to respond to this together." The lawmaker added that beyond the real estate issue, internal party divisions exposed during the recent party convention were also seen as a factor weighing on the approval rating.

Within the party, there is concern that the slide could also burden major policy initiatives the Democratic Party is pushing. A key party official said, "It looks difficult to push forward with the special prosecutor bill on the dropped indictment right now. It would have been better to do it before the local elections." Others noted that constitutional reform — Lee's top policy priority — is also losing momentum as the approval slump coincides with debate over the issue of a second presidential term.

The survey was conducted by telephone interviews using random digit dialing of virtual mobile numbers, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. The response rate was 9.4 percent. Further details are available on the website of the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission.


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