One day out: Battleground races keep shifting as parties make final push

With voting in the June 3 local elections just one day away, both parties launched all-out final campaigns Tuesday, concentrating their firepower on contested races. Both party leaderships identified Seoul, Busan and South Gyeongsang Province as the key battlegrounds in the regional gubernatorial contests, while the fight over 25 Seoul district mayor seats — pitting the People Power Party's defense against the Democratic Party of Korea's bid to reclaim them — drew its own share of attention.

Cho Seung-rae, the Democratic Party's secretary-general and overall campaign chief, told CBS Radio's "Park Seong-tae's News Show" that six regional races — Seoul, Busan, Daegu, South Gyeongsang, Ulsan and North Jeolla — were too close to call. "Winning even one of them matters, so instead of spending time predicting the outcome, we're out there working hard," he said.

On the North Jeolla gubernatorial race, which has tightened since incumbent Gov. Kim Kwan-young entered as an independent candidate, Cho shrugged off the challenge. "There is no justification for running as an independent," he said, adding that even if Kim won, a by-election would have to follow.

The People Power Party, meanwhile, identified seven or eight races as competitive. A senior PPP official told reporters Tuesday morning that Seoul, Busan, South Chungcheong, South Gyeongsang and Gangwon Province were "extremely close," while Daejeon, Ulsan and North Chungcheong Province still remained within reach "if our candidates keep pushing to the end." The party's internal polling reportedly showed Seoul and Busan moving within the margin of error in recent days.

Taken together, political analysts said the Democratic Party believes it holds comfortable leads in nine regions outside North Gyeongsang Province: Incheon and Gyeonggi Province in the greater Seoul area; all four Chungcheong regions — Daejeon, Sejong, South Chungcheong and North Chungcheong; and South Jeolla, Gwangju, Gangwon Province and Jeju.

The PPP, by contrast, considers only Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province safe, and plans to keep rallying conservative voters in contested areas until the last moment. PPP lawmaker Seong Il-jong pushed back on the Democratic Party's claim of a sweep in the Chungcheong region, appearing on MBC Radio's "Kim Jong-bae's Focus" to argue that the Democratic Party leadership's repeated visits to South Chungcheong were themselves proof the race there was in trouble for them.

In the Busan-Ulsan-South Gyeongsang region — the election's most fiercely contested terrain — both parties expect the count to remain neck-and-neck deep into election night.

Party leaders chose battleground stops for their final campaign rallies. Democratic Party overall campaign chair Jung Chung-rae was set to hold a closing rally at Cheonggyecheon Plaza in Seoul's Jung-gu after earlier stops in Gangwon Province and Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Co-chair Han Byung-do continued canvassing North Jeolla, visiting Iksan, Jeonju and Wanju to back North Jeolla gubernatorial candidate Lee Won-taek. On the PPP side, standing campaign chair Jang Dong-hyeok and co-chair Song Eon-seog kicked off their final day in Seoul before heading to South Chungcheong and South Gyeongsang Province, respectively.

Choi Chang-ryeol, a political science professor at Yongin University, said most voters had already made up their minds. "The broad 'insurrection verdict' frame is working in the ruling party's favor, making it difficult for individual candidate appeal to break through," he said.

Still, Choi cautioned that the large number of competitive races meant many results would be decided by slim margins. "We could see outcomes described as 'the people's exquisitely calibrated choice,'" he added.

The contest for Seoul's 25 district mayor seats is another closely watched subplot of this election. In the June 1, 2022, local elections, the PPP swept 17 of the 25 seats in a landslide.

Current assessments favor the Democratic Party, which is riding high approval ratings and pressing its "martial law verdict" message. The party is targeting 19 to 20 seats — adding Dongdaemun and Dobong to its existing eight incumbencies, and pushing further into Han River belt districts and Gangnam.

A senior official in the Democratic Party's Seoul mayoral campaign said the three Gangnam districts were "traditionally very difficult" for the party but expressed confidence that a strong showing in the Han River belt would produce "meaningful results" even in Gangnam. On former President Lee Myung-bak's public endorsement of PPP candidate Oh Se-hoon, the official said it would "actually hurt among moderate Seoul voters."

The PPP, holding more incumbent district mayors than the Democrats, is building its defense around that advantage. The party is counting on at least seven seats — the three Gangnam districts plus Yongsan, Gangdong, Yangcheon and Jung-gu — as a base from which to expand.

Its strategy in property-sensitive areas such as the Han River belt centers on leveraging the incumbency premium alongside pledges of real estate deregulation and redevelopment and reconstruction projects to blunt the Democratic wave.

A PPP Seoul chapter official said: "With urban renewal becoming a central issue, we think the districts where we have sitting mayors are still very much in play."