Kim Min-seok edges Jung in Seoul, Gyeonggi primaries, leads by 8.4 percentage points overall

Democratic Party of Korea leadership candidate Kim Min-seok narrowly defeated rival Jung Chung-rae in the Seoul and Gyeonggi Province regional primary votes on Sunday, extending his advantage in the race to lead the party. The win in the greater Seoul area followed a dominant performance in the Honam region on Saturday, further consolidating Kim's position ahead of Monday's national convention.

The Democratic Party's Central Election Commission held joint candidate forums in Suwon and then at Kintex in Goyang before announcing the results of the rights-holding party member vote for the metropolitan area.

Kim took 46.66% of the vote, edging out Jung at 46.28% — a margin of just 0.38 percentage points. The third candidate, Song, received 7.06%.

Kim's cumulative vote share had surged to 52.21% after his landslide in the Honam primary on Saturday, a region that accounted for roughly 33% of total party membership. It slipped back below the majority mark to 49.91% following the tight metropolitan contest. The figures do not yet reflect weighting adjustments for South Gyeongsang Province, Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province.

Jung's cumulative vote share stood at 41.51%. Under the one-person, one-vote system being applied for the first time at this convention, the party leader election results are weighted 70% for delegates and rights-holding members and 30% for the general public.

Only rights-holding member votes are disclosed during the regional primaries. Results from delegate votes — cast online on Monday — and the public survey will be announced at the national convention in Daejeon on Monday, after the regional primary circuit concludes.

The party leader race uses a preferential voting system. If no candidate wins an outright majority, the second-choice votes of those who ranked the lowest-placed candidate first are added to the top two candidates' totals to determine the winner.

Some analysts say Jung would need a decisive victory in both the public opinion survey and the delegate vote — which together account for 30% of the total — to mount a comeback.