Lee's picks go 4-for-6 in local elections

Former Cheong Wa Dae aides backed by President Lee Jae Myung achieved mixed results in the 9th nationwide local elections, winning four of six contests. Spokesperson-turned-candidates Kim Nam-jun and Jeon Eun-su secured National Assembly seats, as did Kim Nam-kuk, a former digital communications secretary. Woo Sang-ho, Lee's first chief political secretary, won the Gangwon Province gubernatorial race. But Ha Jung-woo, the former AI planning chief known as "Ha-GPT," lost to independent Han Dong-hoon by 1.7 percentage points, and former political affairs secretary Kim Byung-wook was defeated in Seongnam — the president's political home base.

President Lee made a series of campaign visits to Busan, Daegu, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Province — areas considered hostile territory for the ruling Democratic Party — in the days before the vote, but the effort fell short of delivering a sweep. Of the three metropolitan mayoral and gubernatorial races in Daegu, Busan and Ulsan, and three National Assembly by-elections in Busan's Buk-gu Gap, Ulsan's Nam-gu Gap and Dalseong-gun in Daegu, only incumbent lawmakers Jeon Jae-soo and Kim Sang-uk prevailed; all other Democratic candidates lost.

Cheong Wa Dae remained silent Thursday on the election results, issuing no statement. President Lee had posted four times on social media on Wednesday — election day — weighing in on voting, real estate and other issues, but had made no public moves as of Thursday morning.

Of the six so-called "Lee picks" — candidates personally chosen by the president — four won. The most painful loss came in Busan's Buk-gu Gap, one of the most fiercely contested races of the cycle. Ha, who carried the president's full confidence, lost to Han Dong-hoon, a former People Power Party leader, by just 1,392 votes. The defeat stings further given that the opposition failed to unite behind a single candidate: PPP candidate Park Min-sik drew 12,866 votes, suggesting that even the active support of Jeon Jae-soo — a three-term incumbent from that district who ran for Busan mayor — and the Democratic Party's full backing were not enough to overcome the split.

Results across the Busan-Ulsan-South Gyeongsang region told a similar story. In Daegu, a late campaign appearance by former President Park Geun-hye helped Choo Kyung-ho, a holdover from the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, win his race. In South Gyeongsang Province, Kim Gyeong-su — a former chair of the Presidential Committee for the Local Era — lost to the PPP. In Ulsan, incumbent lawmaker Kim Sang-uk won his race, but the by-election to fill his vacated Nam-gu Gap seat went to Kim Tae-gyu of the PPP, a former Korea Communications Commission official under the Yoon government.