The Koreas | Politics | East Asia

Exit Polls Suggest Ruling Democratic Party’s Victory in Local Elections

Exit polls suggest the DP will win 11 of 16 regional posts, with Seoul and Busan producing the night’s most closely watched results.

South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party is likely to win 11 of the 16 metropolitan and provincial gubernatorial races in local elections, according to the exit polls broadcast by the three major public broadcasters: KBS, MBC, and SBS. While facing tighter than expected contests in several high-profile races, the DP appears set to win a landslide victory in the elections thanks to the high approval ratings of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung.

According to local media reports, early data suggested that the voter turnout in the June 3 local elections was 61.0 percent, which is 11 percentage points higher than the previous local elections in 2022. That year, the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) won a landslide victory in the wake of its victory in the presidential elections in March 2022. The final voter turnout has not yet been announced as of this writing. 

If the results of the joint exit polls are confirmed, the PPP would only secure wins in the areas where South Korean conservatives have garnered unconditional support for decades.

Due to Lee’s approval rating and the PPP’s failure to distance itself from the now-imprisoned Yoon Suk-yeol, the impeached president of South Korea who is also Lee’s predecessor, the scale of the DP’s victory was broadly anticipated. However, the close margin of votes between the DP and PPP candidates in regions such as Seoul, Busan and Daegu demonstrates that the voters differentiated between the popular Lee and the DP writ large by showing less support for the DP candidates. 

In Seoul, DP’s mayoral candidate Chong Won-oh led PPP incumbent Oh Se-hoon by 5.4 percentage points, 51.4 percent to 46.0 percent, according to the exit polls. The Seoul mayoral race had been the most closely watched contest of the cycle as Oh, seeking his fifth term as Seoul mayor, had kept closing a gap that earlier surveys had shown in the past few weeks. The Seoul mayor holds a unique constitutional standing among 16 governors and mayors in the metropolitan areas as it is the only such office entitled to attend Cabinet meetings, making the office a platform with direct national visibility. In this context, the DP has poured its resources into the race to reclaim the Seoul mayoralty and bolster Lee’s governing agenda.

The Seoul election was marred by reports that 12 voting booths in three different districts in the city ran out of ballot papers, forcing voters to wait to be able to cast a ballot. The secretary general of the National Election Commission made a public apology for the issue during a press briefing. The unusual incidents gave the PPP an opening to question the results; already, the PPP floor leader has called for the elections in Seoul to be re-held.

The PPP has a history of making baseless accusations of election rigging, notably after the 2020 and 2024 general elections. These claims have been repeatedly debunked and dismissed by the National Election Commission, South Korean courts, and independent watchdogs. 

In Busan, the DP’s mayoral candidate Jeon Jae-soo, who is also a former minister of maritime affairs and fisheries, led Park Heong-joon, the PPP’s candidate and incumbent, by 1.9 percentage points, 50.2 percent to 48.3 percent. Should the result hold, it would show that the residents in Busan acknowledged the Lee administration’s efforts to develop the........

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